A Tale of A Jade
by Vendicor
Summary: Everyone knows of Steven Universe, the hybrid human-gem kid with a loving family and a bright future. But what if someone else like him, wasn't as fortunate. Follow Marcus as he meets the Crystal Gems and realizes that he isn't the only gem anymore. He is not alone, and he'll work to keep it that way. (Image does not belong to me.)
1. 1 Prologue

? Pov

"Raaaaaaagh!"

*Shink*

*Poomfp*

*CRACK*

' _Another one gone.'_ Slowly, I reach down and grab the broken pieces of the gem so no one else finds it. God knows what would happen if the government decided to take an interest in these things and either try to reverse engineer them, domesticate them or replicate.

' _Seriously, how many more of those things are there? That makes an even two dozen now.'_ Looking around, I take in the destroyed park around me as my swords disappear. Luckily no one was around to be injured or killed by this thing and none were stupid enough to stay and snap some picks. After getting an alert on my phone about a 'monster sighting' a few days ago, I took off as fast as I could to see if it was true or a hoax. Most are hoaxes but the ones I found true saved lives.

Already I hear the sirens of the police heading my way. _'Time to make my escape.'_ Running, I jump over a broken bench, roll over a broken tree and slide across the hood of my truck before getting in the driver seat and taking off. Albeit slowly and within reason of the areas speed limit to prevent the police from pulling me over. _'I know their responding to the monster attack but I still don't want to take any chances.'_ Keeping low to my seat, I watch as the police cruisers come barreling by me and towards my previous location. I check my rearview, grimacing a little as the tarp that covers my motorcycle and weapon cases takes up most of the view. Looking instead to the side mirrors, I smile as the cops continue on towards the destroyed park.

Heading a few a couple miles away from the scene of the crime, I stop at a gas station. Taking out my phone and swiping it open, I check the app I installed for anymore hits. For years, I've always been a sly, stealthy kind of person as well as tech savvy. Ever since these monsters have been appearing along the Eastern part of the US I've taken it upon myself to find them and destroy them, preventing them from hurting people and gaining the attention of any less than stellar folks that may want to… abuse them for their own gain. So to find them, I couldn't make a radar or tracking device designed specifically to find these things since I didn't have time to dissect them and what not. The gem shards look a little weird but to the untrained eye or someone not specifically looking for something, they are just unassuming but expensive looking gems. So with that option out of the way, I went with the next best thing.

Social Media.

Well okay not the best thing but people these days can't go five minutes without someone tweeting, updating their status and whatnot. All I did was create an app that monitors everything on the web and searches for key phrases and words that people might be using to describe these monsters that have been cropping up.

No biggie.

Still, the past year has been fairly tiresome with the moving around and all but fruitful since I'm able to keep off the grid, find useful gear and hunt monsters. Not your typical job for an 18 year old. Nevertheless I do it. Placing my phone on the dashboard, I reach behind my seat and grab one of my backpacks. Zipping it open, I drop the new shards into it. _'Another addition to the pile. How many more will I have to get before I run out and have to use another bag?'_

*Ding Ding Ding*

"Hmm." Grunting, I zip up the bag and place it in my passenger seat before grabbing my phone off the dash. Seeing another alert on my phone, I read aloud what I got this time.

"Lets see… freaky colored women… giant green centipede creature… that spews acid… great, bugs now." _'Hate bugs, hate them so much.'_ "What else… giant red eyes in the sky…" I look up then back down a couple times. "Well that's new. Alright, where is this? Gotcha."

Turning my truck back on, I take out one of the two of my Beretta 92FS's from the holsters inside my black jacket and check to make sure it's working properly. Checking the magazine, pulling the slide back, checking the trigger, once I'm satisfied I holster it again. Lifting up my sleeves, I stare at the green Jade gems on my shoulders. Sighing I slowly grip the wheel with both hands.

My name is Marcus Castellanos. I'm Hispanic, sunglasses, black short hair, average build with a black jacket, gray t-shirt, blue jeans and black sneakers. I am 18 years old, I don't care for my father and neither did he for me. My childhood wasn't the best and now I'm a person with no home except for my truck and the possessions I find useful. I don't know what I am but I know I'm not human and the one creatures I've found even remotely similar to me have wanted to kill, maim and destroy innocent people and I won't stand for it. Putting into gear, I step on the gas and peel out towards the nearest interstate.

"Beach City, Delmarva. Here I come."

 **This is definitely something new I wanted to try. I love the show Steven Universe and this character was just something I had in my head for awhile and decided to go ahead and give writing another shot. To be fair, I'm not sure how much of a guarantee I'll have when it comes to writing. I started writing this just before school starts so I don't know if I'll have as much as the same drive during that time than I do now. In any case, hope this was a good start at least.**


	2. 2 Meeting the Gems

3rd person POV

"Pearl! Watch it"

"I got it, Garnet! Amethyst, you too!"

"Don't worry, P. I- Whoa! Where's Steven?"

"Over here! Do we need the Cannon?!"

In Beach City, a group of people, all of which aren't known to be human and are better known as the Crystal Gems, are currently fighting a monster on the beach. Nothing new to them but the giant red-yellow armadillo-like armored up monster is doing work and giving them a run for their money with its blade-like tongue and spiked flail tail. The four individuals working to try and contain the creature are no slouch when it comes to combat, however at least 3 of them could be considered non-human by their appearance alone.

One that goes by the name of Pearl, has skin almost white in contrast but can be argued as ivory. She has sky blue eyes and pink hair that leads to a point in the back. Her clothes consist of a sleeveless, sky blue top with a silk transparent ballet skirt around her waist. She also wears pink leggings with light green socks and finishing off with slip-on ballets shoes. The weapon she uses most often is her pearlescent spear she can summon from her pearl gem, which is placed directly on her forehead.

The second is Amethyst, who is a bit more abnormal to the human eye, consisting of lilac skin, pale lavender hair with her bangs covering her left eye, which both are a dark purple-indigo color. She wears a light purple oversized tank top with the shoulder falling off and a black bra. She wears black leggings as well with star-shaped cutouts on her knees. Her weapon is a whip with a purple gem a the pommel, light pink star as the handle guard and ends with three split pointed purple gem shards and small purple gems lining along the whip. She can pull it out just like Pearl from her Amethyst Gem, on her chest above her cleavage.

The third is Garnet, who is by far the strongest of the group and the most coordinated. Her skin is red-maroon colored with black hair styled to look like a cube-shaped afro. Her clothes are a black and red-crimson bodysuit with magenta and crimson shoulder pads. A pink star adorns her chest with long, elbow-length black gloves that cover her middle fingers. She also wears an orange-tined visor that covers her eyes. Her weapon is actually a pair of heavy-set crimson, magenta and black tipped gauntlets with a gold star on the knuckles. Her gem is not one but two gems, one on the palm of each of her hands.

And lastly but not least of the crystal gems, although still new to the team, is Steven Universe, a half-human half-gem kid who is roughly the same size as Amethyst with curly black hair, black eyes, and wears a pink T-shirt that has a gold star in the center of it. He also wears blue jeans and pink flip-flop sandals. His weapon, although he still has trouble taking it out, is a pink rose-encrusted shield with a spiral pattern to it that once belonged to Rose Quartz, his mother. His gem, which he inherited from his mother, is placed on his navel, right where his bellybutton is.

Being the defenders of earth, the Crystal Gems have done what they can to protect the earth and its inhabitants from extraterrestrial and otherwise harmful creatures inhabiting the planet. Right now, is one such fight.

* * *

' _500 Meters'_

* * *

"No we don't Steven. It's too armored up and fast! We wouldn't be able to hit it." Garnet explains as she bats the tongue away.

* * *

' _300 Meters'_

* * *

"Amethyst! Distract it!" Pearl yells as she rolls to dodge the tail.

"You got it." The purple gem confirms. She whips the creatures face, who turns in question. "Hey, big ugly! Over here!"

The corrupted gem creature retaliates by whipping its tongue at her which she jumps out of the, leaving the creatures flank open.

"Gotcha." Pearl says confidently before hurling her spear at the soft spot below the creatures shell. Unfortunately, it bats the spear away with its tail…

* * *

' _100 Meters'_

* * *

…Right back at Pearl.

"Pearl! Look out!" Steven warns her from his position on the docks.

"EEP!" she squeals and ducks under her own projectile. It disappears in mid air and rematerializes in her hands.

"We need a new plan." Amethyst says as she dodges another attack.

* * *

' _50'_

* * *

"I'm open to ideas." Garnet says as she and her two allies form up on her sides.

* * *

' _25'_

* * *

"Huh?" Steven is puzzled at the loud blaring engine coming closer. He looks back…

* * *

' _Now'_

I race by the kid on the dock on my Suzuki SV650 motorcycle and use the end of the dock as a ramp to launch myself at the creature. While over the three ladies, I kick myself off my bike, sending it directly at the creatures face and grab my weapons. I roll on the ground for a second before stopping in a ready stance as my bike crashes on my opponent, ricocheting off its face and landing on the soft sand a few dozen feet away. As the Armadillo-like creature shakes its head to stave off the concussion I gave it, I grip my swords tighter.

But not just any swords.

The weapons I have in both hands are two long Japanese Katanas with green square cross guards, black hilts with the blades being a very deep dark black green color to them.

I turn my head slightly to the right and look at the civilians in my peripheral vision. _'A little odd looking but no doubt surprised by my entrance.'_ I quirk an eyebrow as the kid from the dock comes up behind them and begins talking to them. _'So they know each other. Interesting.'_

"Watch out!" The kid yells at me. Taking the initiative, I pull back hard and angle myself into an almost perfect right angle as something flies just an inch above my nose. Rolling back and getting into my combat stance again, I see my opponent has gotten his bearings again.

' _Alright. Time to nut up or shut up.'_ I bounce on the balls of my feet with anticipation and make my move. I dash forward as the creature tries to retaliate. Keyword 'try'.

I duck, jump, slide and deflect the offending tongue when I can as I make my way forward. With another duck, I push forward and aim for the eyes. With a slash, I manage to cut a large gash on its face as well as one of its eyes just before its tongue whipped me on its way back. I jump back as the creature squeals in pain and anger over my action. Not letting up, I chuck my right sword at it. With precision that I smile at, I embed the sword in its right shoulder just under where its shell covers its flesh. While it squeals even more in pain and tries to dislodge my sword, I take a look at my surroundings.

' _Sand… water… sand. Not very helpful. Wait… Yes.'_ I smirk as my eyes land on the stone water wall that prevents instant flooding to the town. Quickly formulating a plan, I turn back to my opponent, who looks very very pissed off because it was not able to shake my sword loose. _'Now to get its attention… even more than now.'_

"Hey ugly!" I yell and use my free hand to grab one of my Beretta's. Taking aim, I fire a few rounds at it. A couple of my shots deflect off its armor but I've clearly annoyed it. "Cmon! I'm right here!" I yell as I spread my arms wide in a challenging manner.

He takes the bait. He curls up into a ball and prepares to do some type of rolling attack on me. _'Let's do this.'_

* * *

"Steven, who is that?" Pearl asks as she watches the strange human look around after threw his weapon, hoping the somewhat human of their group has an idea of who the strange human is and why he made such an entrance.

"Mm-mm." Steven shrugs his shoulders, clearly just as much in the dark as the others.

"Garnet?"

"No idea." She calmly replies as the strange human yells at the corrupted gem.

"Ameythst?" Pearl asks but not as confident as she was in the previous two.

"Hey! What makes you think I know him?"

"I don't know! I just think-!"

"Uhh, guys?" Steven gets their attention as he points to the battle. "I think he needs help." Looking back to the fight, it looks like it since the human turns tail and begins running away as the gem creature rolls after him.

"We have to save him!" Even if the human is an idiot, Pearl can't very well leave him to die.

"No." However, Garnet thinks otherwise.

"What?!" Pearl asks incredulously to her leader, "Why not?!"

"It looks like he's got this."

"Huh?" Amethyst asks, just as confused as Pearl. As a reply, Garnet points to the fight.

* * *

' _Hope this works!'_ I yell in my head as I holster my pistol and run up the stone wall. At the end, I tuck both my legs in and send myself into a flying back flip over the creature, just as it hits the wall and goes flying up. Landing back onto my feet, I watch as it comes back down and lands on the wall, cracking it and making it unfurl onto its back right in front of me. As it squeals and try's to reorient itself, I slowly walk up and tear my sword from its body. It doesn't have enough time to squeal even louder before I stab both swords into its soft underbelly, twist, then tear them out along its body.

*Poompf*

Sending it back into its gem form. As I stare at the gem at my feet in front of me, I hear footsteps behind me but I pay them no mind as I bring my right katana up, prepared to smash it.

*Snap!*

Something halts my arm mid-air. A quick look shows a purple studded whip wrapped tightly around my arm. Turning around I spot the short purple woman holding the whip.

"What are you doing?" The white pale lady asks me with a slight surprise but maybe irritation as well in her voice.

' _I don't have time for this.'_ "What does it look like? I'm making sure it doesn't hurt anyone else." I say to them. "Now let go."

"Uhhhh, no." the purple one firmly says as she tightens her grip.

"Fine." I growl out. Using my free sword, I bring it up and cut the whip, making my attacker fall back in surprise. Now that my hand is free, I try to continue what I was going to do.

"Wait!"

Again, 'try'. What stops me this time however is the boy right in front of me. "What now?" I ask annoyed.

"You don't have to destroy it. We can just bubble it." He frantically says.

"…" Slowly I lower my arm. "What?"

"Yeah! We can just bubble it and it won't be able to hurt anyone."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"Exactly what he means." Suddenly our conversation is interrupted by the tall magenta woman as she walks past me and the boy to the gem on the sand. Before I can stop her, she crouches down and does what they've been talking about. She bubbles the gem in a pink bubble as it floats in her hand. I stare at her, mouth slightly agape as she taps the top of it and makes it disappear.

' _What the hell?! How…'_ "How did you do that?" I ask, breaking out of my stupor.

"Easy. It's our job." She nonchalantly replies.

"What?"

"We fight these things, we poof them, then collect the gems to make sure they don't run free and hurt anyone else."

' _Just like me. Albeit with a more… non-lethal sort of way.'_

"Anyway, thanks for the help." She says as she walks back to the others, clasping my shoulder with a hand as she walks past me. "But we got this."

I stare at her as she walks back to the others, still more than a little surprised at what I saw. "Ugh, fine!" I growl out as I walk forward. _'I'll find out what they know later.'_ "Out of my way kid." I push past the kid towards my bike. "I got more important things to do than- Agh!" Unfortunately I didn't notice the rock in my path. As a result, I trip over it and land with a face full of sand and my swords disappearing. "Pah! Crap. Son of a…" I silently curse to myself as I get up. I cough up dirt and sand as I try to wipe my face clear of the offending pieces of grime. "Damn it." I stare at the rock in the ground and pick it up. "Stupid rock." Without thinking, I chuck it far off into the sea where you can barely see it splash.

Silence follows.

"Nice throw." The purple one comments.

"Thanks." I reply. I look to see the three odd women staring at where I threw the rock. The kid is… looking right at me. "What?"

Instead of talking, he points to me. I look myself over to see if something out of the ordinary is about me. _'No wounds so I'm not bleeding. Why is he-… fuck.'_ I curse in my head as I find what's got him so silent.

My sleeve was pushed up when I fell, leaving my Jade gem free for anyone to see. I quickly cover myself and stand up. "I'm not like them. Don't come after me." I start walking away. _'Better get out of here before he-'_

"You're a crystal gem too!" the kid yells not in anger or surprise but… happiness? However what he says especially causes me to stop. "Guys! He's a gem too! Like me!" He happily yells to the others. They take notice and start walking to us.

"Steven, what are you talking about?" The pale woman asks as her spear disappears. _'Wait…'_

"We know, Steven. He's a human , like you ." The Magenta woman says.

' _Why is she talking like that? What does she mean?'_

"No. I mean…" While I'm having my inner battle, the kid lifts up my sleeve again, snapping me out of it.

"Hey!" I yell as I quickly cover it again but it's too late. They saw it. Their eyes widen as a response.

"Like me!" the kid yells again as he lifts his shirt up. _'Why is he-!'_

I freeze as I see what he reveals to us. His bellybutton isn't there. It's a pink gem.

' _A gem… he has a gem… on his body… like those monsters I've been fighting…'_ My eyes shrink as another realization strikes me. _'Like me.'_

My legs give out on me, prompting me to land on my hands and knees as my breathing becomes a bit more ragged.

"Hey, you alright?" I look up as the kid stands next to me. He helps me into a sitting position.

"Yeah, yeah, I am I…" I try to calm down but so much has been dropped on me. I grasp his shoulders, startling him a little and lift his shirt. I stare at the gem imbedded in him before slowly touching it. _'Yeah… its real.'_ Releasing him, I lift up both my sleeves and touch mine. _'I'm… I'm not alone. I'm not alone!'_ I smile at the revelation. ' _I'm…'_

' _Having a panic attack.'_ My breathing becomes labored, my vision becomes blurry and my hands start to shake.

I hear their voices and they sound frantic but I can't hear. All this time I thought I was alone. I thought I was some fucked up experiment gone wrong or messed up extraterrestrial creature that my father wanted nothing to do with. He kept me in the dark all my life and I… "Oh god." I manage to croak out.

"… ear… e…" My hearing manages to pick up something. "Ca… ou… hear… e?" I look up to see a blurry white blob in front of me. "Can you hear me?" The voice becomes clearer. I nod. "Good. Now close your eyes." I do as I'm told. Everything goes dark but a headache still goes on in my head. "Breathe in for 4 seconds." Breathe. "Hold for 3 seconds." Stop. "Exhale for 5." Exhale. _'Hearing returns fully.'_ "Repeat. Breathe in." She mirrors me. "Hold… breathe out." My shaking stops. "Again."

' _Breathe in… hold… exhale.'_ I open my eyes. My vision returns as I stare at the pale woman's blue eyes in front of me. "Thank you."

"Your welcome." She says with a smile and stands up.

"Can you stand?" the magenta woman asks me with an extended hand.

"Yeah." I take the offered hand, allowing her to pull me up. She has a hell of strong grip and pulls me up with ease. I also take notice of the gem in her hand. Literally in her hand. I stare her visor covered face as she gives me a smile. I look to the woman who calmed me down and take notice of the pearl in her forehead. Looking to purple, I see half of an Amethyst gem peeking out from the top of her shirt. I look at Steven to see he has a smile on his face and almost bouncing in anticipation. I scratch my left gem a little.

"*Sigh* I guess, questions and answers, for both sides?" I ask Magenta.

"That would be best. C'mon, we'll talk at our place." She begins walking away to my bike. She picks it up like nothing with one hand and slings it over her shoulder. "By the way, the names Garnet." She points a thumb to herself.

"Amethyst." The purple says as she walks to Garnet.

"I'm Pearl." The pale woman and the one who calmed me down courteously says.

"And I'm-!"

"Steven. Yeah, I heard." I cut him off before he can finish saying it.

"What about you? What's your name?" Pearl asks me. Looking to each one of them for a second, I contemplate my decision. _'There isn't much to talk about. Right now they are as close to answers I can get in 5 years.'_

"Marcus. My name is Marcus."

* * *

After we came to Steven and the Crystal Gems house, which is in a badass location by the way.  
I mean seriously, on top of the beautiful goddess statue, the houses placement is awesome with it being placed into the mountains and with an unobstructed view of the entire ocean. I'm pretty sure people pay millions for that kind of view. Anyway, when we got there me and Steven sat on the couch while the gems, as they are called, stood or sat around the kitchen counter across from us.

We exchanged information. They told me who they are, what they are, and what their job is. Steven was especially helpful considering we are one and the same, half-human half-gem hybrids essentially, and helped keep me calm through the talking. Pearl even kept reminding me a couple times of the breathing exercise, just in case. I also told them what I could. Not everything obviously. I still have some demons of my past I'd prefer to keep secret, especially if I hope they can maybe help me find out in the future about whom exactly I am. Right now, they told me who Steven is and that he inherited his mother's gem. For them to know who mine is without just my gems, I have to show them something else.

"Ohhhhhhh." Amethyst and Steven show their amazement of my weapons verbally with sparkles practically surrounding them.

"Neat, huh? Still not sure who they belonged to but man did she have good taste." I twirl the swords a couple times to show my proficiency with them.

"Oooohhhhhh." They continue to gawk. With a smile, I hand one each to Garnet and Pearl. They look at them from different angles, even going as far as to testing their sharpness.

"Hmm." Garnet hums. "I have an idea but nothing concrete. How about you Pearl? Know who this is?"

"I'm sorry Garnet, Marcus. But I'm stumped, I can't decipher these markings or even who's weapon this is. Again, sorry." Pearl apologizes to me as she and Garnet give my katanas back to me.

"Its fine." My swords disappear. "I've been waiting for soo long to find out about my mother. I can wait a little longer." I say with a shrug.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Steven apologizes to me. I smile and ruffle his hair.

"Thanks man. Your good people." I say as I sit back down.

"Sooooo, what now?" Amethyst asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Pearl begins, "You know about us, we know about you. Where do we go from here?"

I think or a second. "Well, I could give you my number so if you find some info about me you can call me and I'll head back here." I propose.

"That sounds promising."

"Where do you live?" Steven asks. My eyes drift off away from him as I contemplate my answer.

"My truck." I answer. _'Okay, that sounded better in my head.'_

"You live in your truck!? That's so cool! My dad lives in his van." Steven proclaims.

"Oh… well, I'm sure he has more room than me. Backseats in a pickup type truck aren't the best sleeping arrangements." I say as I rub my back. It's true, the first few days when I started sleeping in my truck left me stiff as hell for awhile. It was annoying but a necessity that I've grown used to. "But its fine. I need to keep mobile so I can-"

"Oh! I know." Steven interrupts me. All eyes are on him. "You can stay and sleep here!"

"…" Silence.

"Gems, huddle up." Garnet proclaims as she grabs Steven and pushes the other two out the door. I see them conversing through the window.

"Huh, well that's an idea." I say to myself with nothing to do but wait, I stand up and look around. On the wooden part of the house, everything seems normal, but the missing wall leads to the stone part of the house, with some type of crystal pad and a door with varying colored gems on it in a star formation. "Nice."

"Alright," I hear Garnet, "We've come to a decision." She and everyone else comes back in but Steven looks especially happy so I think I know what it is.

"And?"

"If you want, you can stay here." Peal speaks. _'Wow. A new home. That's awesome!'_

"Really? Wow, thanks! I really apprecia-!"

"But..." she cuts me off. _'Crap, always a catch.'_

"Buuut?"

"We expect you to help us fight when 'we' ask you too and for you to teach Steven whatever it is you know about your powers and try to help him hone his own." She says.

"What do you mean?"

"Stevens's young," Garnet says as she places a hand on said kids head, "He still has a lot to learn about being a Crystal Gem and we don't fully know how to help him when we don't rightly know exactly 'what' he is. Considering you're the same as he is-"

"And how awesome and cool you were at fighting that monster out there!" Amethyst happily interrupts.

"Correct, I guess. Basically you show tremendous skill and adaptability for a… human-gem and we'd like you to teach Steven what it is you know." Pearl finishes up. I look at them all, taking each ones facial expression to my memory. _'As I said before, not much to think about.'_

"You know, I think I can agree to that. Alright, I'm in." I say my decision to them. Amethyst and Steven high-five each other, Pearl gives me a smile and a nod, while Garnet gives me a thumbs up.

"Well, now that that's over with. I say we turn in. It's getting late." Looking outside, I see Garnet is right, the sun is starting to set. "Marcus, you'll have to take the couch for now."

"Hey, better than being cramped."

"I'll go get some sheets." Pearl turns to grab them from a nearby closet.

"I'm gonna head into town and get my truck. Don't want anyone to steal it." I say and begin jogging to the door and out.

"Hurry back!" Pearl calls out. I wave back and continue running, jumping down the stairs till I hit the sand.

As I make my way to the outskirts of Beach City, I can't help but be ecstatic about my new situation. For nearly my entire life I've been in the dark about who I am and now I have not one but four points of reference. Granted one of them is still young but screw it. I'll take what I can get! And now a place for me to sleep properly and help out more.

I finally make it to my truck and climb into the driver seat and happily grip the steering wheel.

"Looks like things are finally looking up."

*Clink*

I turn to the passenger seat and find what made the noise. My backpack fell over. The one that contains two… dozen… broken… destroyed…. Gems.

"Ooohhh f-" My head slams into the steering wheel, activating the horn.

*HOOOOOOONNNNK*

 **Well, that was interesting. Feels good to write again and hopefully I'll still have this drive throughout my time in college. I hope my descriptions of the characters were alright. I got most of it from the wiki so if the description seem off, that's why. A couple of you asked or may be thinking of pairings being a thing, well your right. I got an idea but I won't reveal it now, obviously. Probably gonna be a slow burn but who knows. Kinda making most of this up as I go along. Well when it comes to next time, we meet Frybo.**

 **Thanks to those who already faved this story, I appreciate it.**


	3. 3 Frybo

It's been a week since I stayed with the Crystal Gems and while my first impression was a good one, the next wasn't. Obviously I had to show them my… 'collection' and boy were they pissed. The horrified looks they gave me when I handed the bag to Garnet and she dropped it in surprise, letting its entire contents spill out, more than enough to freak out Pearl and Amethyst. Steven was… alright, somewhat of the situation. I don't think he fully grasped the idea that I've killed 2 dozen gem creatures without batting an eye basically. Maybe it's because he's still so young. I should try to make sure I don't do anything too… extreme when around Steven. Don't want to be a bad influence after all. Technically, I'm going to be his teacher, or tutor, or something like that. I'm giving him pointers okay!

Anyway, after we went to sleep the first night, I showed them the bag and they had another huddle outside. I didn't want to but I may have read their lips.

* * *

 _*Flashback*_

" _We can't let a killer live with us!" Pearl exclaimed loudly. I didn't need to read her lips to know what she was screaming about. The glass isn't soundproof and her flailing arms were also an indication._

" _We already agreed to let him stay with us, Pearl. It would be rude to take it back now and kick him out." Garnet tries to reason._

" _Rude?! You saw his… collection." Pearl spats the word out, "He said he destroyed them. 2 dozen gems Garnet!"_

" _But I don't think its his fault, Pearl." Steven says._

" _What?! What do you mean Steven?"_

" _I mean, he doesn't know how to bubble gems right? You guys can, and that's why we can stop our gem monsters from poofing back out. From what he said, he's been fighting monsters miles from here. Way far away from us." Steven tries to reason with the hysterical Pearl._

" _Well, yes but-"_

" _Besides," Amethyst says while she sits on the railing, kicking her legs back and forth, "He seemed pretty cool considering he learned who we are. If he's as angry at gems as you think he is Pearl, I don't think he would have agreed to sleep with us."_

" _Maybe he's biding his time, waiting to learn our weaknesses before he strikes. Or maybe he wants to pick us off one by one." Pearl frantically says as she grabs her head with both hands._

" _Pearl, your being paranoid. We can handle ourselves." Garnet says._

" _I know we can but what about-"_

" _Steven. I know. He's had plenty of opportunities to hurt him. He slept not 5 feet from him and he's perfectly fine."_

" _Hm." Steven smirks with crossed arms in a macho-bravado sort of way._

" _Yes but-"_

" _He only destroyed those gems because he was forced to. I don't know any other way to contain gems and its clear he can't bubble them. I had Steven look up anything he could about him or any other rogue gems that we may have missed. All he found was new reports pertaining to mysteriously destroyed locations and property with no clear possible answer to what caused them. He not only is able to take on any monster he finds, he did it and contained them without the humans getting none the wiser. Preventing unnecessary panic." Garnet explains._

" _But-"_

" _And!" she cuts her off again, "If we can keep him here, not only will we be able to teach him what we know, we can make him understand himself better. Plus we still need a teacher for Steven." Garnet punctuates that by placing her hand on Stevens shoulder, who smiles in return._

 _Pearl looks to the tall gem in question, trying to come up with a reason to not let this violent person stay with them. But she fails in coming up with one. Garnet came up with such valid reason to letting him stay and why he's done what he's done. Her face remains still the neutral expression as always, Steven still looks happy to have him stay and Amethyst…_

" _Whoa!"_

 _Fell of the railing. Looking over, they find her at the bottom, giving a thumbs up._

" _Gah, Fine!" Pearl gives in finally. Steven lets out a whoop of joy and Garnet smiles. "But I'll be keeping an eye on him, not for a second."_

" _Fair enough." Garnet agrees. "C'mon back up Amethyst, it's time to eat." She calls down to the purple gem._

" _Oh!" In anticipation, she jumps up and lands back on the porch."We can fry up that egg I got! Just imagine the omelet we can make with-!"_

" _Oh god!" With the Crystal Gems half through the door, they find Marcus at the fridge with the door wide open and yellow yolk splattered all over his shoes and socks. A look of horror is on his face as he stares at the mess, as well as the broken egg with half the shell stuck to the inside of the door. He looks at them, "Where do you guys shop?!"_

 _Silence is their reply until Pearl looks to Amethyst, "I told you it wouldn't fit."_

 _*End Flashback*_

* * *

' _Took me hours to scrub my socks and shoes clean. Who knew egg yolk was so hard to get out of footwear? I mean seriously, I know I've faced dozens of different types of monsters with varying shapes and sizes with many types of powers, yet how am I supposed to react to a GIANT FREAKING EGG the size of my torso in the fridge.'_ Anyway, they're still wary of me but tolerate my presence at least. I know I could have kept the shards a secret but I didn't want to take the chance of them finding out on their own. Hopefully because I came out and told them that I earned some points with them. Still, even though I'm staying with them, I need to be wary of the fact that I have weapons in the presence of a kid. He may be a gem but I still shouldn't take the chance of him being curious. _'Which means I can't rely solely on the combo lock the cases have built in, maybe install some padlocks that only I have the keys too.'_

Yet I don't manage to dwell on it enough because right now there is something going that I must have the answer to.

"Steven, where are your pants?" the half naked kid in front of me has got me curious as hell because of it.

"I don't know. One minute they here, the next gone." He reply's as he continues to sift through his pile of clothes.

"Sooo, what? They just disappeared on their own or walked away? C'mon man."

*TapTapTapTap*

"The hell?" soft footsteps like noises catch my attention. Steven doesn't hear it but continues to rifle through his clothes. "Ah, maybe I'm being paranoid." I say to myself as I reconstruct my pistol.

"I know I had eight…" Another voice catches my attention. Racking the slide back, I see Pearl looking around the counter with seven light blue shards suspended in a bubble in her right hand. She turns to us. "Hey, Steven… Marcus," she says my name with a slight sneer. "Have you two seen a gem shard anywhere? It's very important."

"Nope, nothing out of the ordinary." I plainly say as I holster my pistol.

"No, have you seen my pants?" Pearl finally takes notice of Stevens lack of pants. "They're also very important."

"I'm serious, Steven. These Shards have a powerful partial consciousness that has been harnessed by Gems throughout history in order to create semi-sentient drone soldiers with the capacity to follow basic orders. Gems once created an army of these drones, but found their obedience waned as the shards overdeveloped inside their uniforms and turned on their commanders. You see, any shard imprinted by any sort of container could become a monster. That's why it's very, _very_ important it's kept away from any kind of garment." Pearl explains these shards. My eyes are slightly widened at the potential these things can be.

*TapTapTapTap*

' _Seriously?! Again?! Maybe I am getting paranoid.'_ I shake my head and look to Pearl.

"Wow, sentient drones. Cheap, quick, inexpensive shock troopers. A must have for any army more often than not." I sarcastically say the last part to myself. "Any idea where they could be?" I ask her as I stand up.

"Well, if you must know, I only need one more shard but the last monster attack, the one you almost killed," _'Starting to regret telling them.'_ "Shattered the gem and the animals of Beach city scattered them about." She takes off to the door and looks back to us, "Make yourself useful and help me find it. Steven, if you see it, bring it to me, right away. I'm going to check in town." Without waiting for a response she goes out.

"Crap, better go help her." I follow her out the door but stop to look at Steven, "Hey dude, you heard her right?"

"Yep!" He says with a smile. Somehow, I don't believe him.

"Alright then." However I don't have time to interrogate him. Jumping off the porch, I roll as it hit the ground and call out to Pearl, "Hey Pearl!"

"What do you want now?" She asks with a slight grimace.

"Anything I should know about the clothes that get possessed by the shards? Durability, strength, powers, speed, what?"

"Exactly. However it depends on what garment is possessed for all those factors to take place. The bigger that's possessed, the higher the possibility for a very powerful combatant." She explains.

Placing a hand to my chin, I start thinking, "Alright, possibility of it being… high armor output… massive strength probability's…" I mutter to myself. "Alright, I'm gonna go grab something from my truck then start looking in town." I say to her as I start running back to the temple.

"Hurry! The longer we wait the higher the chances of the shard possessing something." She calls to me then turns back to search the town.

I went ahead and parked my truck close to the steps of the temple so I would be close to it and grab what I need but also not close enough to the water so the rising tide would sweep it out to sea. Pulling the rear hatch of my truck down, I begin sifting through my cases until I find the weapon I'm looking for. "Aha!" I happily exclaim. Grabbing the case, I sit down on the hatch with it in my lap and put in the code.

"Hey Marcus!"

"Hey Steven." I nonchalantly reply as he greets and runs past me. Putting in the last number, I open it up and pull out its contents, a 12 Gauge Double barrel Sawed off shotgun with a strap for my thigh. Securing the thigh holster to me, I load up both barrels and grab 6 extra shells just in case. If the target can either be fast, tough, stronger or all three, I need something with spread to counter the fast and power to negate its strength and durability. Sliding it home, I jump off, put the case back where it was and close the hatch. "Alright, time to go hunting."

* * *

"This sucks." An hour later, and still nothing. I looked everywhere I could to start off. Along the beach, under the docks, back alleys. When those didn't work, I started roof hopping and even checking the gutters as well as birds' nests in nearby trees.

I may or may not have pissed off a couple of momma birds.

Grumbling to myself I jump off a roof and move along the boardwalk while absent mildly rubbing my pecked left cheek. "Damn. Ow. Note to self: don't piss off birds."

"Marcus." Turning around, I see Pearl walking up to me. A frown is on her face. "Any luck finding the shard?"

"No. Nothing. And I'm guessing because you asked me, no luck on your part either." I ask her.

She shakes her head, "Unfortunately you're correct. Where could it have gone?" She asks as she looks around.

"*Sigh* I don't know. It's always the last item of a puzzle that eludes people." Looking around as well, I try to contemplate where else we could look.

"Maybe we could-"

"Aaaaagh!" A loud deep yell cuts her off.

We look at each other directly in each other's eyes, knowing what the scream means. "I think we found it." Without another word, she jumps high into the air towards where the scream came from. _'Damn that's cool.'_ Enough gawking at her moves, I tear through an alleyway heading in the same direction. I come upon the scene of the scream. A broken fry shack with the windows cracked and broken, an unconscious man on top of a kid with curly blonde hair and Steven. Pearl stands next to a broken upturned table.

"Guys what's going o- Holy freakshow!" I loudly exclaim as I materialize my swords and spot the large sadistically smiling fry creature with flailing frys on its head and very prominent veins.

"Steven! Did you put my missing shard in that fry costume?" Pearl asks him.

"Yes!" He reply's frantically.

"Didn't you hear what I said about the living armor and infantries and many, many deaths?!" she hysterically asks.

"No!" _'You know, I should have been thorough with him.'_

"Oh Steven." Pearl says in a disappointed manner. Materializing her spear in one hand, she twirls it around and lands on the upturned table with grace. I move in to engage the fry monster. Pearl throws her spear and nails it right in its eye. While its distracted, I move forward ready to strike.

However it retaliates by spewing a highly concentrated hose of ketchup right where Pearl stabbed it. "Whoa!" I stop in my tracks and roll backwards under the stream. The fry has no control over the stream as it starts jerking all over the place. "Crap!" I yell and head back, avoiding the blast by vaulting over the table.

"Pearl!" Steven yells as he moves past me. Looking to where he's going, I see Pearl was hit with the first blast of ketchup, her entire face completely covered.

"Pearl!" I yell as well and move to her. "Are you alright?" I carefully pull her up and lay her against the table.

"Ugh, the ketchup! It's everywhere, I can't see!" she exclaims, looking back and forth with her eyes closed..

"Crap." I look around for something to wipe her face.

"Shards… Need!" Steven says and takes off.

"Steven!" I yell as I try to reach out and grab him to stop. I miss and he gathers the shards Pearl dropped and continues going. "Where are you-!"

*CRASH*

Something smacks against the table, moving me forward but knocking Pearl to the ground. Soon a yellow tentacle snakes over the table to try and grab Pearl. "Hey!" I yell at it and slice it off. I hear a loud squealing noise as the piece I chopped off whiters a bit before it stops altogether. "Stay here." I tell Pearl and jump over the table.

"Wha'?"

The thing looks especially mad now. "C'mon then." I challenge it with my arms spread. It takes the bait as I move it away from the blonde kid as he tries to wake his father, I think, up. I charge at it and dodge the tentacles and bits of fries sent at me. When I'm close, I stab both my swords into its chest. Unfortunately, that's a flaw. They instantly get stuck to the hilt and I can't pull them out. It grabs me at my waist with both its hands and slams me into the ground. "Cah!" Before I can retaliate, fries start pouring out of its mouth and onto me, almost trying to force-feed me them. I keep my mouth and eyes closed but trying to push him off proves pointless

' _Damnit! Need some help here!'_ Suddenly, the costumes head jerks back, momentarily stopping its fry barrage. We both look to see… pants? _'The hell?'_

"Frybo!" Looking farther back, I see Steven with a fry in his mouth and… naked in only his underwear with his clothes surrounding him… all standing up? _'Wait, he used the shards to make his own army?'_ I smile. _'Clever boy.'_ He eats the fry, "Your move."

Frybo squeals again. It's move… slamming me into the ground again and sending its tentacles to Steven. "Attack!" He yells and his clothes do that. His jacket and pants get caught but his shirt, shoes and socks engulf him directly, forcing him to let me go to try and scratch off his attackers.

' _Now!'_ Placing one foot on its chest, grabbing Pearls spear in my left hand, I grab my sawed off with one hand. "Frybo!" He knocks the clothes off and looks down at me. I place the barrels directly between its eyes. It crosses them to look at the barrels. "Eat this!" I pull the triggers.

*BOOOM!"

With a loud booming sound, making my ears ring in the process, both barrels unleash their payload, completely knocking Frybo off me a few feet away and tearing Pearls spear right out as well. Hearing only a loud ringing noise and covered in cheese and frys, I stand up and pop the chambers open on my shotgun, ejecting the shells. I smile as I see Frybo in half and lifeless. "Phew, glad that's over." I comment and walk over to the others. Steven and the kid smile while Pearl tries to wipe off the ketchup. Suddenly the kids tense up and so do the clothes.

"Marcus!" Steven points past me. Looking back, I see both halves starting to try and fuse back with fries.

"Oh I don't think so." I mutter to myself and stomp over to him, loading up a couple more shells along the way. With a satisfying 'snap' of the shotgun closing, I plant my foot on its top half and aim. "No." I firmly say and pull the triggers again.

*Boom!*

Without extreme close proximity, the ringing doesn't follow but the blast does stun Frybo and clears a path to the shard in a pile of cheese. _'There it is!'_ I think with eyes wide open. Before I can react, the cheese regenerates around it. "Oh no you don't!" I yell and slash the now regenerated cheese pile with Pearls spear. It handles like a dream and slices smoothly. With enough cutting, I catch a glint. _'There!'_ Jamming her spear in, I drop my shotgun and jam my hand into it, careful to not cut myself on Pearls spear. Digging around a bit as Frybo squirms under me, I grasp something hard. _'Got it!'_ With a heave, I pull back. The gem is clear as day in my hand but strings and strands of cheese and fry's latch onto me. "Grrrr! Enough! Raaaaah!" With a loud war cry, I slice the strands, sending me falling back and away from Frybo with my prize.

With a grunt of air, I prop myself up on my elbows as the costume wiggles around a little before stopping all together, then deflating. Breathing a sigh of relief, I flop onto my back. I look at my hand covered in cheese with the gem shard tightly in its grip. Slowly, I stand up using Pearls spear to prop me up.

"Marcus!" Suddenly I'm barreled into by an over-excited Steven. "That was so cool! You were so awesome the way you took Frybo on like that!" He says to me with stars in his eyes. I give him a tired smile and pat his head.

"Thanks man. It was… exhilarating." I comment and move past him. "Now put some clothes on. It was weird you hugging me like that." I move over to Pearl, giving the man who was unconscious earlier a nod as he moves to the remains of Frybo. I kneel before her as she continues to try and wipe ketchup off her face. Placing the spear and shard next to her, I tear off the blanket of the table. "Here. Hold still." I tell her.

"What?"

"Just… do it… please." I ask tiredly. She stops moving for a bit before finally nodding. Carefully, I use the cleanest part of the blanket I can and begin slowly wiping off the ketchup on her eyes and nose. Before long, her eyes are completely clean and she opens them to stare at me. We stop moving for a few seconds to acknowledge one another. Without another word, I continue cleaning her. Half-a-minute passes and I manage to clean her mouth. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" she asks, clearly confused.

"For what I've done." Before she can interrupt I continue, "I know you don't like me and I understand why. I wouldn't want to be friends with me either after what I've done." Cleaning one cheek, I move to the other. "But the fact of the matter is, I need answers. You and the others are the closest thing I've got to answers in about 5 years. It may seem insignificant to you but it means a whole lot more to me. You guys also need help when it comes to fighting these monsters and Steven needs someone who understands what he is or can be." I finish cleaning her face. I place my hands on my lap and look down. "I still don't know what it is we can become, but I know I'm a lot closer than he is." I look back to the subject and see him with the others and his clothes trying to pick up the remains of Frybo. Looking back to Pearl, I stand up, "You don't have to like me," I extend my hand towards her, "But I hope we can at least understand each other: you wanting to protect your friends and family, and me? I've been in the dark for far far too long." She looks at it a few times between me and my hand before making her decision. She grabs hold of my hand and I pull her up. Looking back down, I grab her spear and the shard and hand both to her.

She takes both items, the spear in her left and the now bubbled shard in the other, and walks past me. She looks towards what remains of the enemy that attacked her and the others. "I suppose… I have been a bit too… critical with you. You honestly don't know how to bubble gems, right?" she asks without looking back to me.

"Yes."

"Then I suppose you had no choice. To prevent a gem from regenerating, to keep them dormant and locked up, you have to bubble them. Garnet was right, since you couldn't bubble them and had no idea we even existed, you were forced to stop them the only way you knew how," she turns to me, "By destroying them." I look down and away from her, more than a little ashamed at the potential lives that could have been saved. "I'll forgive you if you promise me one thing:" I look back up to her, "Promise me, that under any circumstances you will not break another gem as long as you are with us."

Silence follows as we stare at each other. She's more than likely in slight anticipation about what my response is. I see it in her eyes.

"I can't make that promise." I stop her before she retorts, "Life isn't in black and white and there is the chance where at some point in the future we will meet enemies that may defeat us and possibly force us to do things we may not want to do. In the end, I will do whatever I can to make sure that you, Garnet, Amethyst, Steven, as well as whatever else innocent lives I find… live. When it comes down to it," I take a step towards her until our noses are almost touching, "I'd rather have you live, than die." I bluntly tell her.

My father wasn't a good man and I've seen plenty of instances where innocent lives are destroyed by evil. I'm tired of it. The Crystal gems told me thousands of years ago, they defended earth because the planet was innocent in their eyes and lost lives to defend it.

I won't let their sacrifices be in vain.

We remain silent to each other.

"Hey guys!" We turn our attention to Steven, still in his underwear. _'C'mon man.'_ "We're going to give Frybo a Viking funeral! C'mon!" He waves us over.

"We're coming!" Pearl reply's. Steven nods and walks with his clothes as they carry Frybo. We look back to each for a second before I walk past her to get to the others.

"I can live with that." I stop and look back to her. She gives me a small smile in return.

With an immense relief off my shoulders, I smile back. "Thank you." With that, I jog over to the adult walking with kids, picking my shotgun up at the same time and holstering it. "Excuse me, mister…?"

The man looks back to me, "Fryman. Thanks for your help with Frybo." He shakes my hand.

"Oh, uh. Your welcome sir." I move over to Frybo and tear my swords out of him before making them disappear. "In any case, I wanted to ask. Did you want to set Frybo on fire, or should I? Because I think I got something that may be able to make it more authentic." I tell him.

"Oh, well I was just going to light him on fire with a lighter then just push him off, but you were the one to defeat him so the honor should go to you." He says with a smile.

"Thank you." I nod to him.

"Think nothing of it." He slaps my shoulder, making me cringe a little from his meaty hand. "So, what do you have in mind?"

I may have give off a smile and chuckle that some may perceive as possibly sadistic. "Well…"

* * *

"You were great, Frybo. The kids today just didn't understand. Now, they never will." Mr. Fryman gives his small sermon.

"Weren't people scared of it before he attacked them?" Pearl comments.

"Shhh." Steven shushes her.

"It's time to send him off." With a grunt, Mr. Fryman pushes Frybo on his boat out while Pearl uses the end of her spear to help. Stevens clothes help out as well. Soon before long, Frybo is far away from the beach. "He's ready!"

"Good." I finish tying the piece of cloth to the end of one of my arrows and place it on my compound bow.

"What are you doing?" Pearl asks curiously as I walk past her.

"Just watch." I reply as Mr. Fryman lights the cloth. He steps back as I draw the string back and take aim. Lining up my shot, I fire. All eyes are locked onto the flaming projectile as it flies high into the air and lands onto the boat. Before long, the boat is completely engulfed in fire.

"Dad?" The kid, now whose name I know as Peedee, talks to his dad, "Uhm... I'll, are you going to get another costume?"

' _Oh god! I hope not.'_

"I don't need another Frybo," Fryman places his arm around his sons shoulder, "I got the fry _man_." They smile at each other.

"Guys, I think our work here is done." Steven says as he poses in a heroic fashion.

Still in his underwear.

"Put your clothes on, Steven." Pearl tells him with frown.

"Thank you!" I loudly exclaim. "Seriously man, it's getting a bit too uncomfortable for me seeing you in your skivvies."

"Ohhh, alright." He pouts as he begins to gather up his clothes and give the shards to Pearl.

"And with that, I'm heading back to my truck. I need to put away from my stuff." I turn around and begin heading back until Steven moves in front of me to give Pearl the shards.

"Here you go Pearl." He hands them to her fully clothed. ' _Thank you._

"Thank you Steven." She proceeds to start bubbling them.

"By the way, Steven," I ask him before I decide to take off. "Where did you find the shard in the first place?"

"Oh! It was in my pants." He answers.

I lift an eyebrow in question, "Wait, you mean the pants you were looking for earlier?" He nods back. "That's stupid. Then again it does answer for those noises I heard- Ow!" Before I finish, Steven kicks me in the shin.

"Steven!" Pearl scolds him for his brash action.

"Ow. Crap, crap, crap. Why man? Why you do me like that?" I ask him as I hop around on one foot qhile grabbing my assaulted one.

"I-I don't know! I-I-I didn't mean too! I don't- Oh!" A look of realization spreads across his face once hysterical and freaked out face. He reaches into his right pocket and pulls out another shard. "Here. I thought I forgot one."

I remain silent, silently brooding as Pearl bubbles the final one with all the others before sending them off. "Whatever. I'm too tired for this. Ow. I'm gonna stop by my truck then head to the temple to turn in. I'm done for the day. Ow, ow, ow." I limp in pain to my destination.

"Thanks again for your help! Your next meal at the Fry Shack is on me!" I wave back at the mans words.

* * *

"Aaaand done." I finish cleaning the last part of my sawed off on the rear hatch of my truch before reconstructing it again. With the last part in, I test fire it without the ammo.

*Click*

"Seems like a hassle for an overly complicated weapon." Looking to my left, I see Pearl standing there, staring at me.

I return a smile as I begin putting away my stuff away. "Maybe so but you can't argue with results." I say while pointing to the distant smoke trail.

"Hmm, I suppose your right. Can't fault you for that one."

"Yep." I finish locking up the shotgun and placing it with the others. "So, any reason you're here? Or did you just happen to see me while heading back to the temple?" I ask her while sitting back down.

"Well," she sits on the hatch as well, "As it stands I've always been fond of different types of weapons, especially swords." She says with a smile and a far off look.

"What you got a collection like me?" I ask while gesturing to my own.

"I do actually. I have collection of various swords in my room in the temple. Although Amethyst has a fondness for taking them every so often." She grumbles the last part. She turns to me, "Becareful when being friends with Amethyst. Otherwise she might take some of your collection." I look at my cases with a worried glance.

"Riiiiight." I turn back to her, "But I imagine you're not here to give me a warning about our ally?" she nods

"Correct, while humanity may still be so… primitive, I find some points of human technology interesting. I never did find out what made human weapons tick and considering you seem so proficient in human weapons…?" she leaves the question to hang in the air for me to catch.

I smile, "I see what you're getting at. Alright I'll teach you about them but in return…"

"Yes?"

"You teach me what you know on sword and spear fighting. You've had centuries of experience when it comes to melee combat and I've only been self-taught. I'm good, but I know I can do better." I extend my hand to her, "Deal?"

"Deal." We shake on it.

"Good. Let's get started." I happily reach back and grab one of the more longer cases.

"Right now?" she asks in surprise as I begin putting in the code.

"Just the basics. No time like the present, right?" I ask.

She chuckles a little before agreeing. "Alright then, show me what you know." She sits cross-legged on the hatch.

"Gladly." I say with a toothy smile and open it.

Things may have gotten off on the wrong foot but I can only hope things get better from here on out.

 **Not gonna lie, I came up with all this right on the spot. It wasn't supposed to be this long or emotion enduring for the characters when I first thought of the episode, but as I wrote I just started thinking and planning and well… here you go.**

 **I don't know if this chapter is kind of the norm for how it is but damn do I feel good for coming up with this right then and there. I have no idea if future chapters will be this emotional, long or if I'll even be able to keep up with this consistency of chapter releases. Either way, I'm going to try and write as much as I can before school starts Monday.**

 **Still pissed at myself for starting so late in the summer but I'll accept the consequences and make do.  
**


	4. 4 Cat Fingers

"And this is… the magazine."

"Correct." Couple days have passed and already Pearls got a firm memory. "And it…?"

"Hm," she thinks, "Ah! It contains the projectiles used to send them through the weapon itself."

"You got it." I place it down. "Alright, looks like you've got all basics down. If you want, next lesson I can show you how someone properly uses this weapon to their advantage." I say as I slam the empty magazine into its weapon, my M4A1 Carbine with a holographic scope, adjustable stock, flashlight attachment, and two different magazines, the standard 30-round or the extended 60. A personal favorite of mine what with its multiple attachment opportunities and varying models. She knows the ins and outs of Assault rifles but it won't matter if one doesn't know how to properly hold the gun, clean it and what general order to operate it.

"That would be wonderful."

I place the gun in its case and turn back to her, "So not that I don't like talking about my stuff and all, but why are you here? You looked a little… frustrated."

"Ugh, it's Amethyst. She was being…" she tries to come up with a word to perfectly describe her immature friend.

"Amethyst?"

"Yes." She says with a defeated sigh.

I nod, "Ah, 'enough said."

"What's worse is I'm afraid of what kind of influence she can be on Steven. You know he can be very impressionable." She says worriedly.

"Ah, don't worry about it." I lay back against the inside walls of my truck, "I'm sure she won't do anything too destructive or mind crazy with him. She's not that crafty or irresponsible."

"Meow!"

"Ahh!" I jump in surprise at the sudden noise. Unfortunately my legs get caught on each other and I trip, right over the other side of my truck, and onto my back.

Pain follows. A lot.

And one bout of laughter followed by scolding.

"Ahhh hahahahahahahaaa! Gotcha."

"Amethyst! Don't do that!" Soon, Pearl looks over followed by a grinning Amethyst. "You okay?"

"Oh yeah. Yeah. Just peachy. My backs just twisted is all." I sarcastically say with a slightly strained voice. I grab onto Pearls and Amethysts extended hands, allowing them to pull me back onto my truck. With a twist to the left and right, I hear some satisfying 'pops', loosening me up. "So, any reason why you almost killed me?" I ask the purple gem with a frown and crossed arms.

"Eh, just wanted to have some fuuuunnn." She says in a relaxed tone as she leans back, hands behind her head.

"What? You didn't have enough with Steven?"

"Thanks Amethyst!" Said kid runs past us into town with a smile.

"Your welcome." She replys without looking at him and a lazy wave.

Pearl and I look to each other before back to the other gem. "What did you help him with?" Pearl asks warily.

"Eh, he was curious about shape shifting so I showed him some moves."

"Wait, you can shape shift?" I ask the purple gem in surprise. _'Shape shifting? Man that's pretty cool.'_

"Of course. All gems can shape shift. Just ask Pearl." She points to her. I look to said gem.

"It's true. All gems have the ability to shape shift into different objects, whether its inanimate or alive, a gem can shift into it." She explains.

"Damn, that's pretty cool."

Suddenly I here a 'whiring' type sound to my side. Look over, "Meow." I spot a light purple cat with an Amethyst gem on its chest. We stare at each other for some time till look back to Pearl.

"While it is a useful ability, it seems you can't change your original color style, which to the trained eye would be easily picked up on." I point out. If Amethyst wasn't sitting there a moment ago, I would have been weirded out seeing a purple cat with a purple gem on it but I probably would have figured something was up eventually.

"But it's still awesome." The cat speaks. _'Okay, that's kinda creepy.'_ She turns back into her regular form. "Hey! You want us to teach you? It'll be fuuuun?" she says with a smile and wavy hands.

"Uhhhhh, thanks but no thanks." I turn down her offer, making her mood deflate. "I'm quite partial to how my body is how it is. I don't feel comfortable moving it around and possibly… misplacing something." I say the last part with a bit of a shudder.

"Awww, your no fun." Amethyst says with a pout.

"Whelp," I lean back, "Sorry to disappoint."

"Gems!" Garnet makes her announcement by slamming into the ground behind me.

"Gah!" I jerk forward but manage to keep myself from falling off, however this does make Pearl and Amethyst laugh. "Will you guys stop scaring me?!" I yell, more than a little peeved at getting scared to hell twice in not even half-an-hour. Garnet makes no comment; she just stares at me with a neutral look. "*Sigh* What is it?" I ask while righting myself up.

"We have a problem." She says seriously, stopping Amethyst from her laughing fit.

"What is it?" Pearl asks.

"A small island was infested with a gem and is heading this way." She explains.

"Wait wait wait, a whole island?" I ask in disbelief. She nods. "Damn that's a new one."

"This is a tectonic emergency and the island could do irreparable damage if it reaches the main land. We have to intercept it before it gets here. Pearl, we will go get the Gem Sloop." Pearl nods and jumps off into the air, making my truck bounce a little. "Amethyst, find Steven and tell him where we are going." She nods and takes off. "Marcus, see what you have on hand that could help. This'll be a good example for us to see how you do on a mission."

"Roger." I confirm and grab my M4 from its box and a couple magazines.

"We'll meet at the docks near the temple." Without another word, she jumps off.

After watching her jump off for a few seconds, I think on what I should bring, ' _Alright, bringing my M4 because I need a little versatility. If we are going to be on the island itself, I need to be aware that everything around us can attack. But I can't just take this. What else do I-'_ "Aha!" Closing the hatch on my truck, I reach into the backseat of my truck and look around. "Where is it? Where is it? Ah! There you are." I mutter as I bring out what I'm looking for. One of those small folding shovels typically used by the military. "If its on an island, chances are its gonna be buried." Grabbing a couple of straps, I attach them to shovel and rifle and cross them on my back. Locking up my truck, I head over to the docks to find Pearl and Garnet already in the boat. "I'm here." I say as I carefully get in.

"What did you bring?" Pearl asks.

"My M4 and a military shovel. The rifle is for general purpose, you know in case the island or anyone else decides kill us," I say like it was nothing, "And the shovel is in case we need to dig it up or chip it out of something."

"Smart." Garnet compliments with her same still neutral expression.

"Thanks."

"Alright, lets go." Amethyst says as she plops down in the boat. Without a word, Garnet kicks us off the dock. With that we begin drifting towards our destination, slowly. _'Maybe I can use my shovel as a paddle.'_

"Wait!" *Splash*

Looking back, we all spot Steven trying to wad his through the water towards us. "Steven?"

"Steven!" Pearl loudly exclaims.

"Hahahaha. C'mon, you can make it!" Amethyst tries to encourage him. He attempts to paddle but suddenly he jerks his arms back when a loud… _'Wait, are his fingers… cats?'_ The others gasp while I remain puzzled.

"Steven, what's going on?"

"Waah! I-It's nothing! I-I just turned all my fingers into cats!"

"Nothing my ass." I mutter to myself.

Pearl turns to Garnet, "We have to stay and help Steven!"

"We can't. This is a tectonic emergency. We'll deal with Steven when we get back." Garnet remains rooted towards our mission.

"Amethyst," Pearl turns toward the purple gem, "I blame you for this." She points an accusing finger at her.

"Eah, that's fair." She shrugs.

"Grrr!" Pearl growls. She attempts to calm down and turn to me, "Marcus, I'm sorry to impose but could you-"

"Stay here and make sure Steven is alright? Done." I answer for her and take off my rifle.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Besides," I hold the rifle over my head, "We may learn something from this. Hya!" With a grunt, I jump out. The water immediately engulfs all the way up to my chest. "Oooooh man, cold!"

"Steven, Marcus is going to stay and help! Just try to stay calm!"

"Okay!" He calls back. Before long I manage to wade my way through the all while keeping my rifle above my head towards Steven. "I'm sorry you didn't get to go on the mission because of me." He says sadly while looking down.

"Don't sweat it man," I pat his head, making him look up to me. "These things happen. Now c'mon. Let's get inside and find out how to fix you." I pat him on the back to send him moving.

"Yes sir!" He salutes with his cat fingers and moves. _'Creepy.'_

* * *

"Enough! No more cat fingers! I just want Steven fingers! … And I don't mean little me heads on fingers, I mean my regular fingers!"

' _Oh god that would be even creepier.'_ So far I haven't been able to come up with anything. I asked him if he could try to recreate the feeling of when he first made his cat fingers because apparently it's not cut and dry as just… thinking it.

"Wha! Aahhh! Stop!" I turn around and bolt back to the living area where Steven is.

"Steven! What's wron- Whoa!" Surprise hits me hard as I see parts of Steven turning into cats. Already his arm is one, his foot, parts of his chest and a spot on his head are moving around and meowing.

"Amethyst! Pearl!... Garnet!" he begins crying out. He turns to me with tears almost beginning to form in his eyes. "Marcus." He says with genuine scared and sadness.

"Oh god, Steven!" I crouch next to him and look him over, trying to find some means to help him. "Uhhh, uhhh, uhhhhhh… Screw this! We're going to find the gems."

"But-"

"No buts!" I try to pick him up. "I'll get you to them even if I have to hotwire a speed boa- Pah!" Before I can finish, one of Stevens cat arms smacks me hard in the chest, sending me crashing through the window and slamming against the wooden railing outside. It breaks as I try to get up, sending me over the side, hanging on by only my hands. "Oh crap. Ohhhh this is not good."

"Marcus!" Steven hobbles out the door and spots me trying to climb up. "Let me help."

"Thanks man. I appreciate- Ow!" Unfortunately one of his cats bites me, making me lose my grip on one o my hands. Looking down, I see just how far up I am. However its punctuated even more as my rifle loses its hold on me and plummets towards the rocks down below. It hits the rocks hard and I'm pretty sure I saw something snap off the gun itself. "Shit."

"Dad!"

"Wha!" I swing myself back up and see Steven running away down the steps. "Steven! Where are you going?!" I call out to him as I bring my arms up onto the ledge.

"To find my dad!" He calls back as he makes it to ground level.

"Your dad? Steven!" I call out to him but he's already gone. With another grunt, I bring my torso up and shimmy myself up until I'm fully onto the porch. On my hands and knees, I breathe slowly to calm myself down before getting to my feet. Reaching behind me, I take off the shovel and drop it to the ground, already making my way down the stairs. "Damn. Alright Steven, where are you going?"

* * *

An hour passes and it's already starting to get dark. What's got me so worried now is that at first his footsteps in the sand were normal but as he moved further and further away, they started to become even more erratic and it wasn't long before I was pretty sure they resembled to moving on all fours. "Damn, man. Where are you?" What's worse is my body is still a little sore from the small beating Steven gave me. I also had to pull a shard of glass out of my leg and side. Fortunately they coagulated pretty quick but damn does it hurt like a mother. Regardless I press on. His footsteps are all over the beach and what with the water messing up any indentations in the sand plus the low light of the moon, I've almost completely lost his tracks. "Crap. Lost him." With the sand tracks gone, I look around seeing if I can find anything else to lead me to him. A broken bench catches my eye. Jogging out of the sand and onto the boardwalk, I examine the broken piece of the bench to see teeth marks on it. "Alright, he came this way. Now where?"

"Aaahahahaaa!" A scream makes me snap my head towards it. At a nearby car wash called 'It's A Wash' is the source where I see a fairly large man blasting something with a hose. He has hair behind his head in a mullet style with a bald spot on top. He wears a white tank top with gray shorts or pants and flip-flops. I quickly make my way towards the man just as the mass he's spraying lunges at him. I tackle him out of the way.

"Gah!" I groan as I roll off the guy and stand up, seeing the mass is Steven, I think. He's really far gone with the cats. I barely even see his shirt. "You alright?" I ask the man I saved.

"Yeah, thanks." I extend my hand and help him to his feet.

"Steven! Are you alright?" I yell to him.

"…not enough."

"What?!"

"Hey!" the man I saved turns me to him, "How do you know my son?!"

"I know him because-!" I freeze at the mans words. _'Did he say…'_ "Son?!" I ask completely in surprise.

"Yeah! That's my son!" he points to Steven, who's still moving about, trying to force himself into puddles from the looks of it. "Kind of. How do you know him?" he asks with just a hint of anger in his voice.

"Wha- but- I-" _'Crap I was hoping to make a better impression on the man than now.'_ "Oh man. Look I'm a friend, alright." Thinking on the spot, I lift my sleeve to show him my gem. His eyes widen as a response, "Trust me."

"You're a gem?! But how-!"

"Look! I'll explain later but for now we have to help your son." I try to reason with him.

He takes a moment to collect himself then nods. "Uh, yeah. Yeah sure."

"Dad…" We turn to Steven to see him grabbing the entrance of the car wash. He turns back to see us, his eyes widening when he sees me. "Marcus! Guys, its not enough water! We need more!" he looks to the car wash he's holding, "Dad! Turn on the super-wash!"

"What?! No, I won't do it! It's too dangerous!" Stevens dad replys.

"You've got to! I'm a monster! I'm an adorable cat monster!"

' _My leg and side beg to differ on adorable.'_

"No you're not!" I look to his father and actually see him tearing him up. "You're my son!" he says, his voice sounding… worried. I smile at the man. _'He cares… a father who cares despite... good man.'_

"Dad! Please! Aahhh!" Steven cries out as the cats engulf him more.

"Mr. Universe." He turns to me, "We don't have a choice. You get the machines started," I pick up the hose, "I'll get him in."

He looks toward the ball of felines. He closes his eyes, then turns back to me with determination. "Right." He turns around and heads throw the main office door.

Turning the hose on full blast, I hammer the felines with a concentrated spray, angling myself so they are between me and the entrance. I force them in a bit but they start to push back against my spray. "Nope." Throwing the hose away, I crouch down and take off hard at Steven. With a grunt of exertion, I rugby tackle the felines the rest of the way into the car wash. They start biting but I ignore it. Looking to the side, I spot Mr. Universe through the window. "Do it!" I order. He nods and presses a button. Closing my eyes, I continue to push the ball of felines through the car wash as we are bombarded with highly pressurized water streams, soap suds, pelted with those waxy brush things and finished off with another bout of water. By the time we are done, I'm holding a normal Steven in my arms with holes and tears all over his clothes. Sore from all my injuries, including my bite wounds, I carefully carry Steven out the exit, where his dad meets us with a hose in hand. Slowly I lower Steven to the ground then collapse as well.

"Dad." I turn my head to Steven to see him slowly getting up. He turns to me, "Marcus. We did it."

"Yeah we did." I say.

"Meow." My eyes widen in horror as one of Stevens fingers is still a cat.

"Aahhhhhhh!" All three of us scream as his dad hoses the beast. Soon, it returns to normal. We breathe a sigh of relief and collapse onto the ground.

"Soooo, uhhhh, son… care to introduce us?" Stevens dad asks, waving a hand in my direction.

"Oh, you're right. Dad, this is Marcus. He's a human-gem like me." Steven quickly explains, punctuating the statement by lifting his shirt and showing off his gem. The man looks at his son, then looks over to me. As a reply, I lift both my sleeves up and show him my gems on my shoulders.

"Wow. Another gem like my son? Cool." He scoots over to me and extends his hand, "Greg Universe."

I grasp is hand firmly and shake, "Marcus Castellanos, at your service." I say with a slight head nod.

"Oh no need to be so formal with me. I'm anything but. And you can just call me Greg." Greg tells me.

I chuckle and smile at the man, "Regardless, the past days have been an immense relief to me considering I actually found someone who's actually like me. I'm thankful to have found the gems and that they were willing to let me stay with them."

"Wait, the gems are letting you live with them?"

"Yeah. After we met over a week ago during a monster fight, we talked, I told them some things about me and they let me stay so I can help them and they can help me find out who I am."

"Who you are? Don't you know?" I know he didn't mean to but that question kinda hurts considering.

"… Hey Steven, why don't you head on home? It's getting late and we have no idea when the gems will be back." Sensing how the mood in my voice is, he gets up.

"Sure thing. I need to change too. Thanks you two!" Steven calls back to us as he takes off to the temple.

We wave back to him as he becomes smaller and smaller the farther he goes. I ask my question, "Do you love him?"

"What?"

"Do you love your son?" I ask him straight in the eyes.

"Of course I do! What kind of question is that?" he answers surprised. I don't immediately reply, just think for a bit.

"Did it hurt? Did it hurt when she disappeared and gave you… him?" I ask somberly.

His surprised expression turns to confusion, then he gets what I'm saying before he looks sad. "Yeah, yeah it did. At first I was depressed for quite awhile, seeing Rose give herself up for Steven like that… but after awhile, that bundle of joy just became such a handful that I didn't have enough time to be depressed. When taking care of him, it just reminded me how much Rose was… happy to have a son. I still miss her but… she left an amazing present behind."

I smile at the man's explanation. So much so that I'm pretty sure I'm crying. I wipe my tears. "Then your already a better man than most." He looks over to me seeing me clean my face, "My father wasn't so willing or happy with the results of my mom's action. He always resented me, telling me 'I'm not her.' He hated who I was and never bothered to tell me anything. I… I left. I may have been giving up on finding out who my mom is or knowing what I am but I couldn't stand to live with that man so I left. You can imagine my surprise when I found out about your son."

He stares at me for a long while before sighing, "Geez man. I'm sorry to hear that. Truthfully I was really depressed for the longest time after Rose, Stevens mom, gave up her form to have Steven. For awhile the gems hated and resented me for 'taking away their leader' so to speak. Feeling the cold shoulder they gave me, I didn't want to do that to my son I loved him, took care of him and so on." He places a hand on my shoulder. "Sorry your dad didn't… get it in time."

I pat his hand, "It's fine. In a way, I'm alright with it. If he hadn't driven me away, I wouldn't have met Steven or the gems so I'm cool with it." _'I'm partially lying but he doesn't need to know that. It's still great living with the crystal gems. That much is true.'_ "It's definitely interesting being with them and all."

"Hohoo yeah, those missions they go on are certainly one for the books." There isn't anything else for us to say after that so its silent between the two of us. "Hey, uhhh, Marcus?" I look to him, "Do me a favor and look after my boy? The gems expect a lot from him, having Roses gem and all, so if he needs anything that I can't help him with, can you?"

I smile and slap the man's back, lightly. "Don't worry about it. He's a pretty resourceful kid. I don't think he'll need me but I got his back. Don't worry."

He gives a relieved smile to my answer, "Thanks man."

"No problem."

Unfortunately an uncomfortable awkward silence follows. _'C'mon man, find something else to break the ice.'_

"So Steven said you live in your van?"

* * *

After that, things mellowed out. We just talked about general things here and there after awhile but soon it was pitch black out so we had to call it a night. It was nice finally talking to Stevens dad and it was refreshing to know Steven had such a caring father.

"Can you teach me to shoot?"

With that being said, I may be his advice giver, because at this point I don't think I can teach him anything, but I'm not going to be a father.

"Hahhahahhaaaahahahah, hahahaaaaa no." I sarcastically yet awkwardly laugh before denying him. He visibly deflates at my answer. "Sorry dude. When you're old enough for sure. And I will show you guys some of my guns eventually so you won't get curious and try to break into my weapon cases just to satisfy your curiosity."

"What?! I would never!" he says in mock hurt with his arms cross. I give him a deadpan stare for a silent few seconds. He awkwardly scratches the back of his head, "Yeah okay, I may have gotten curious later on."

"Told you."

I think this only came up because right now we are sitting on the dock and I'm examining my M4. After it tumbled down to the ground the other day, I forgot it there so now I'm taking the time to examine any damages it might have obtained from the fall as well as cleaning it of any dirt and sand. "Sorry about your gun."

"It's cool. The only that broke off was the holographic sight so that's useless." I toss said item behind me to who knows where. "Fortunately, this gives me a reason to try out my red dot sight for this weapon. Plus I was never privy to that holo sight so it's good." I pat his back in reassurance.

He nods and we fall into a comfortable silence until the gems arrive. "Steven!" Pearl loudly exclaims as she leaps onto the dock and over to Steven. "Okay, let me see it." She begins examining his fingers to try and find the cats but I can only grin at seeing them gone. "W-? Y-you got them to go away?"

Stevens only response is a smile.

"He's resourceful this one." I tap his shoulder.

"It just goes to show, always listen to me, and never listen to Amethyst." Pearl advises. _'The first part sounds too much like a bigot but I won't fault the second part.'_

"That's fair." Amethyst agrees with Pearl.

"It goes to show," Garnet interrupts, " _You_ should have a little more faith in Steven." It's cute because Pearl blushes at the statement since it's directed at her.

"Yea, that would have been a total CAT-tastrophe!"

"Hahahahahaha…" Amethyst, Pearl and I awkwardly laugh at the bad joke.

"But I'm feeling much better MEOW!"

Now we just groan.

"Ehhh? What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

"Okay, that's enough." Garnet says as she and the others walk away.

"Yeah man, your kinda trying too hard." I tap his head as I follow the gems.

"Wait, I've been coming up with cat jokes all morning. You guys, I'm FELINE fine." _'Oh god this is bad.'_ "Everything's PURRRRFECT!" _'Throw me through the window again.'_ "Oh come on! I'm just KITTEN around!"

By this point, he's just white noise as he continues to tell jokes and we make our way up the stairs with me leading. "So, how bad was it?" Garnet asks.

"What makes you think it was bad? OW!" I yelp as a sharp pain goes through me. Turning around, I find Garnet holding a piece of glass with a neutral look and a horrified Pearl and Amethyst looking. Reaching behind me, I find the wound the glass made. Giving an awkward smile and chuckle, I gesture upwards. It's not long until we make it to the top and the scene from yesterday is out and about for them to see. I turn back to them.

"There were some… complications."

 **Still surprised this one came out so long. I don't fully know if this is long or not but I guess I'm just comparing it to a 12 minute episode. Anyway, this was still alright for me to write. Wasn't expecting to have the small moment with Greg and all but there you go.**

 **Until tomorrow… hopefully. Thanks for all the reviews and favs guys. I appreciate it.**


	5. 5 Bubble Buddies

*Boom!*

"Ah!" Suddenly I fall off the couch and find myself face down on the floor. Groaning, I get up and look around to find what that shaking was.

"Is he alright?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine. "

My attention diverts to the voices. Looking to the living room window, I spot the gems huddled up against the window, staring at something. "What are you guys doing?"

Garnet is the only one to acknowledge me although she doesn't turn, "Hello Marcus."

They keep staring out the window. Not wanting to be left out, I peer over Amethyst to try and see what's got them so interested. My eyes roam a bit but I have pretty good guess as to what it is that's got them so interested. _'Of course, Steven with a girl.'_ "You know, instead of intruding on Steven's social life, maybe we could focus our efforts to something a bit more… productive?" I propose. "Like for example, the earthquake that knocked me onto my face?"

"The earth has earthquakes all the time. It's nothing new." Pearl says while still looking at the window.

"Hmmm," I think a retort. I take out my phone and do a quick search of places in the US where earthquakes occur and when was the last time any sort of earthquake occurred neared Beach City or the closest ones occurred. "Aha! According to the internet, earthquakes do occur on the planet but no earthquakes have occurred whatsoever in or near Beach City ever. The closest one is several hundred miles from here." I say with a smile.

"The internet lies." Garnet replies.

"…" ' _God damnit she's right. The internet can lie.'_ I sadly think with a lowered head.

*Slam*

All our eyes move to the door as a tired, panting sweaty Steven leans against the door. He quickly takes note of us at the window and tries to act casual. "Whaddup?"

"Who were you talking to?" Amethyst asks.

"Huh?"

"That girl." Garnet bluntly says.

"Way to be smooth guys." I mutter under my breath.

"You saw?" Steven exclaims in embarrassment, a visible blush starting to appear on his face. "She's just a girl I know, except she doesn't know me. We never talked." He tries to play it off but fails.

Amethyst lets out a gasp before smushing Stevens face, "You like her!"

"Amethyst! Don't embarrass the kid." I try to dissuade her and pull her off him.

"Uhh… I like everyone." _'Well, technically he's right. Haven't found a person yet he hates or just doesn't likes.'_

Pearl however has a different idea as she gasps, "Let's set up a play-date!" ' _What?!'_ "I'll write up an invitation and work out a schedule. Ohh! We'll have to find out her favorite kind of tea…

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Back up there Pearl." I quickly put down her idea with waving arms. "He is not doing that. He does that he's more than likely gonna scare her off."

"Marcus is right." Garnet agrees with me, "Just talk to her."

"Okay, but you guys can't watch this time!" he tells us with an accusatory point. "It'll mess up my funky flow."

"Funky flow?" Pearl, Amethyst and I ask in confusion.

"We won't watch." Garnet agrees while adjusting her visor.

"Alright!" he says and takes off to the fridge. Reaching into the freezer, he pulls something out.

"What's that?" Amethyst asks.

"Nothing!" he yells as he runs outside.

"Didn't look like nothing." I say as Steven continues to run. "Alright, now that you guys agreed not to spy on him, what do we do against those earthquakes?"

*Boom!*

Another quake shakes everything around us. "See."

"Well, we don't know what exactly it is that's causing these quakes. They could be genuine but they happen way to frequently and the landscape hasn't changed." Pearl deduces.

"So the only other option is something causing them, whether it's human interference…?"

"Or a monster attack." Garnet finishes.

"Right." I pace around trying to come up with a plan of action. "Alright. If it's shaking everything around us, more than likely it's underground. Maybe we can look around for any entrances that go into the ground?" I propose.

"It's the best we got so far." Garnet agrees and so do the others. "We'll search along the outskirts of town. Marcus, you search in town and we'll work our way in." With our orders given, we head outside and almost instantly the gems jump off.

' _Damn that's so cool.'_ Quickly heading down the stairs, I opt not to grab anything from truck because I have no idea what it is I'll be facing that's making these quakes and I don't want to be bogged down by useless equipment. Before I can make my way towards the center of town, something catches my eye.

A giant pink ball thing with two people inside cresting the hill. Recognizing the red shirt and curly hair, I'm sure one of its occupants is Steven and I can only hazard a guess as to who the other is. With a shake of my head, I follow after them until they make it to a store called 'The Big Donut'. Two people are already there attempting to help them.

Well, one of them is with a hammer, the other looks to be having a ball about Stevens predicament.

"Lars, quit being a jerk and help!" the lady yells with the hammer.

"What? I'm helping Steven on his date." The guy known as Lars coos the last part.

"You're embarrassing him!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Yes, you are." I reply from behind the guy. "Now move." I grab him by the shoulder with one hand and push him away.

"Marcus!" Steven exclaims happily with a large smile.

"Hey Steven." Looking at the ball he's in, I knock it a couple times to test its durability. "Looks like you got yourself into quite a predicament."

"Yeah," he says in an embarrassed tone. He scratches the back of his head, "I have no idea how I made this bubble or how it happened."

"You made this?" I ask surprised. I give off a long whistle, "Nice man. Looks like some sort of shield… thing. Could be useful in the future but for now we have to figure out how to get you out."

"Hey! Don't push me!" the guy I pulled away from the bubble yells and tries to push me. I stay rooted to my spot and he only pushes himself to the ground. I just glance at him before turning back

"Uh, hi." My attention moves over to the girl with Steven. "Sorry to interrupt but who are you?"

"Names Marcus. I'm a friend of Stevens and I'm gonna try to help you guys out of there." I say with a smile.

"Connie. Thanks for the help. I'd shake your hand but…" she trails off as she places a hand on the bubble.

"Gotcha." I nod.

"I'm Saddie." The girl trying to help extends her hand to me. With a smile, I shake her hand.

"A pleasure. Thanks for trying to help my friend here." I nod my head towards the bubble.

"No problem." She looks behind me, "That's Lars. Sorry about him. He can be a bit testy sometimes.

"Hey!"

"Whatever." I reply.

"Can you get the others?" Steven asks.

I shake my head no, "Sorry man, the others are out looking for what's been making those earthquakes outside of town. We're on our own." I place a hand to my chin and think, "Now how to pop you…?"

"Oh! I'm gonna go try something else." Sadie says and dashes into the store.

"So, how do you guys know each other?" Connie asks.

"He's like me." Steven says and points to his gem. "He's a gem too."

"No wonder. Your freak like him and the others he hangs out with."

My knuckles pop and whiten a bit as I clench them hard. _'Choose your worlds carefully Lars. Been called that too many times as it is.'_

"AHHHH!" Sadie comes running out of the store with a stool over her head and slams it over the bubble. The stool breaks into a million pieces but the bubble remains intact.

"*Sigh* My turn." Taking a step back, I cross my arms over me and back. Before anyone can react, I take a step forward and slice the top part of the bubble, so if my swords manage to cut, I don't want to kill the kids either. The hit sends the bubble rolling back, making the kids tumble inside until they hit railing around the store. I'm pretty sure I freaked out Lars and Sadie but I pay them no mind. Walking over to the bubble to see it still intact, I poke it a couple times with my right sword. _'Damn. Fells like I'm hitting concrete or steel.'_ With a sigh, I throw my swords into the air, making them disappear.

"Haha ha ha." Steven chuckles nervously. "I have a better idea."

* * *

"Whoa, a trawler! And a little skip-jack!" Connie loudly says in happiness at the surrounding boats.

"You know a lot about boats." Steven comments.

"That's what happens when you hang out at the beach and don't swim and don't have friends." Connie awkwardly explains. _'Okay, that's kinda sad.'_ "Y-you look at boats…"

"Heh, uh…"

"Hey you two!" They look at me behind the harpoon gun, "Not to break up the moment, but could you move to the side or duck please? I'm not to privy to the idea of skewering you guys." I warn them.

"Right!" The two immediately move to opposite sides of the bubble, giving me a clear shot directly done the middle. "Stay back Onion!"

With that, I can't help but look to my left and stare at the pale kid next to me, watching the scene while eating popcorn. We stare into each other's eyes and I can't help but be so disturbed on so many levels.

He gives me a thumbs up. _'Weird.'_

Shaking my head, I take aim and fire.

Not only does the bubble not pop, but the spear does a complete right angle and hits the hull of a ship. "The trawler." Connie moans.

Onion and I look at each other. He gives me a thumbs up, acting cool about it. I however am freaking out.

"Cheese it!" I jump off the boat and take off down the pier. As soon as I pass the bubble I immediately double back and help them push the bubble.

* * *

"Funland?" Connie and I ask at the same time as we roll the bubble through the amusement park gates.

"Yeah! Tons of horrible accidents happen here everyday! There's gotta be something to break this bubble." Steven says.

"Umm…" Connie groans out uneasily.

"I agree with Connie. This isn't really making me feel better." I say in the same tone of unease.

"It'll be fine! We just gotta find the right ride." We stop and Steven looks around. "Yeah, the kiddie coaster!" Satisfied with his choice they begin going up the ramp towards the tracks with me behind. "Alright, we just roll down this ramp as the carts are coming at us, and the crash will break us free!"

' _It's a sound plan…'_

"What happens after the bubble pops?"

' _And there's the flaw. Thank you Connie.'_

"We'll be free!" A very awkward pause is the result of Stevens answer for me and Connie.

"Steven, this is a bad idea." Connie voices our thoughts.

"Yeah, man. I gotta agree with the girl. This does seem-"

Before I can finish, another earthquake, which actually sounds like a roar this time, shakes the entire place and sends me falling back after losing my balance and send the bubble duo onto the tracks. Before I can try to help them, the roller coaster immediately hits them but doesn't pop them, sending them along the tracks instead. "Stop the ride! Stop the ride!" I yell to the operator while I flail my arms to get his attention. He catches on and pulls the emergency brake. Unfortunately, the coaster stops but Steven and Connie don't. Soon they are ramped off the end of one of the tracks and sent hurtling straight towards the ocean. A look of horror graces my face. "Steven! Connie!" Before the cart operator can ask me what's going on, I vault over the railing and roll on the wooden pier. I continue to run as I make my way towards the ocean, jumping over railings, rides and vendors along the way. I hop the fence of Funland and make my way to the beach. Looking to the water I manage to triangulate the water ripples to where they hit the water.

Normally I would immediately jump in after them but I can't help but remember these reports and surveys I saw and read about the ocean and how it's nearly impossible to determine just how deep the ocean is because it's just that deep and the pressure is so powerful.

Right where they are sinking too.

"Aaah! Screw it!" I loudly exclaim and immediately take off my jack and holsters. Placing it against the rock wall, I bolt towards the water and dive right on in.

The cold water immediately cools and nearly freezes my entire body but I continue to swim directly down. Feeling more and more worried as I take into account of just how far they fell, I spot a recently broken crevice. _'Great. Found where the earthquakes are coming from.'_ I diving through the crevice, I almost immediately spot a bright pink glow coming from the dark bottom. Honing in on it, it's definitely them and they seem to be… smiling? _'Well, at least they aren't freaking out.'_ I bang on the bubble. Their smiles turn to happy grins at my appearance. I move under the bubble and try to pick them up. It's much easier now that I'm under water.

Unfortunately two things happen, one the bubble pops and they are no longer in an airtight bubble, and two they are no longer in an airtight bubble… _at the bottom of the ocean_.

My mouth opens in surprise, depriving me of my oxygen and it looks like the others are in the same boat as well. Immediately, I grab the both of them under my arms and kick off the walls of the crevice before kicking off the sea floor and start swimming up. Connie and Steven flail their arms and legs as well to help me push up. My vision begins to blur and blacken at the edges but the water's surface comes into view, giving me a second wind to hit the surface.

With a large gulp of air, all three of us take in the sweet nectar that is air and float there.

"You guys alright?" I ask them. They look to each other for a second before they start laughing. I give a tired smile at them with a shake of my head. "That's good. Now come on, let's get out of here before-"

*RAAAAAWWRRR!*

A large roar pierces the air and disturbs the waters surfaces. A large translucent, red and blue, worm monster with tentacles around its razor sharp teeth filled mouth rises out of the water behind us. It hits the water again, creating a tidal wave effect and sending us hurtling towards the beach. After landing, I cough up a mouthful of water and look to find the others next to me.

Another roar pierces the air. We look towards the water to see the thing zig-zagging along the water towards us. "Go!" I yell to Steven and Connie and materialize my swords. "I'll deal with him. Get the others!"

"Let's go Connie!" Steven grabs her hand and pulls her along.

"But what about-"

"He's got this." Steven interjects. With a nod I get into a combat ready stance.

"Alright you son of a bitch. Come and get… me?" I say in confusion. While I was ready to full take on this creature, it takes and immediate right turn and heads straight for Connie at the rocks. "Connie." I reach to grab my pistol to maybe get its attention, only to find its not there. "Shit! Where did they-?! My jacket!" I head towards where I left my jacket to see its still there. Immediately slinging it on, I head towards the others to try and help them. To my surprise and satisfaction, I see Steven using some sort of glowing object to lure the creature around the supports of the pier, where he manages to tangle the creature around them and stands next to Connie. The creature struggles against its bindings, desperately trying to get at its meal, but the supports start to crack. _'Need to collapse the pier before it gets free.'_ Sprinting past Steven and Connie with both swords in hand, I extend them out and run along the trapped monster, narrowly missing its snapping maw as I cut the supports with my outstretched weapons. With one last slash, I clear the pier just as it collapses. The broken boards trap the monster but it still struggles weakly. Running up a long intact wooden board, I jump over the monster, cross my swords in the air and slice the back of its neck as I land on it. I only cut half way through but it's enough to finally end it. With a satisfying 'poomfp', a large cloud of smoke and sand appears. I drop to the ground in a crouch just as the creature's gem 'clinks' on the ground next to me. Throwing my swords away, I pick up the gem and walk out of the cloud of smoke.

"Steven!" The gems come running towards us as I toss the gem up and down. "Marcus! What's going on?! What did you two do?!"

"They were incredible!" Connie exclaims loudly with stars in her eyes. I smile at her attitude before looking towards Garnet.

"Present for you." I toss the gem to her where she easily grabs it with one hand, bubbles it, and then send it off with a nod back to me.

"So, are you going to introduce us?" ' _Oh god.'_ Amethyst grabs Stevens shoulders from behind and can't help but cut in with him and Connie, making him blush.

"Steven was so excited to meet you. Right Steven?" And neither can Pearl. The boy can only nervously laugh and nod his head.

"Hey!" Garnet interrupts 'them' by picking them both up. "Don't mess with his funky flow." She walks away with them.

"Funky… flow?" Connie asks in confusion.

Stevens only response is a really nervous laugh and groan.

With a shake of my head, I follow after the three, leaving Connie and Steven to properly talk with each other.

"Subtle Garnet. Real subtle."

 **Well, this felt a bit more tame than usual. In any case, I can't believe how popular this is becoming. I don't know if it's because of the quickness I've been putting these chapters out or the content itself but I appreciate it. So many of you have faved, followed, and reviewed this story and I can't thank you guys enough. Already this story has hit over 700 views by the time I post this. Thanks again and have great day.**


	6. 6 Serious Steven

"Marcus, are you alright?" Pearl asks me.

"Y-yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Just peachy." I try to reassure her when in reality I'm not. I mean, it's not every day one goes through an interdimensional warp pad that sends them flying several hundred miles per hour through space to get to your destination.

Also the flightless 'no gravity' feeling adds to the uncomfortableness as well.

"You don't look good." Amethyst pitches in her two cents.

"Well I'm sorry I'm not a extraterrestrial warrior from space." I say with crossed arms but immediately start flailing them a bit when I start tipping. "I've never dealt with anti-gravity situations before."

"Regardless, this is going to be your first serious mission, you two. You need to be ready." Garnet warns Steven and me.

"Yes! I'm ready, I'm so ready!" Steven excitedly says from upside down.

"Oh, I was born ready." I reply. I came prepared this time with my M4 with its red dot sight, and two magazines taped together to allow me to quickly reload. I grabbed a pack of flares for me to use as well as a combat knife with a sheathe on my hip because that's quicker to pullout than my own swords, just in case.

"Steven come on, you're gonna make yourself sick." However in Stevens hurry and excited state to get under way, he grabbed an item which quite frankly I think won't be much help, especially since it just 'thunked' Pearl in the eye when she was helping Steven right himself. "Why did you bring that?"

"I don't know! I was excited, and i-it's mine, and I like it!" he says anxiously with raised arms. Unfortunately this only allows his Ukulele to slip off him and float up. "Huh?" he notices and proceeds to climb up to grab it.

"Steven get back here! You could get seriously hurt!" Pearl tells him.

"Yeah, man. Be careful when going too-" I float towards Steven to grab him and pull him back but before I could, I suddenly find myself in mid-air. Gravity filled air. "Whoa!" I suddenly fall like a rock towards the ground and end up hitting something surprisingly soft. I bounce off the item and roll a little on the grounds thick brush. "Far."

"Steven! Marcus! Are you-!" Pearl quickly checks Steven before moving onto me.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I say while getting up. "I just landed on a… strawberry?" I ask in disbelief as literally the biggest strawberry I've ever seen broke my fall. It's now got a very discernible and crushed part to it now but one could probably still find it edible.

"I-I'm fine too! I'm good, I'm just.. gooey." Steven reassures them too. He also looks to be covered in strawberry juices, which he proceeds to lick off a little. Suddenly he's attacked by butterfly's. "Aah! They're in my eyes!" he continues to scream and run around us as we just watch. Then he trips and falls onto some soft grass in front of Garnet.

Garnet simply brushes the butterfly's off of him. "They're just butterfly's Steven."

"Well, they looked a lot bigger when they were on my eyeballs." He says as he gets up and tries to laugh it off.

"He's not wrong." I say and take off my rifle. "Especially if someone saw that one episode of Spongebob." I mutter under my breath. _'Wormy.'_ I can't help but shiver at the memory.

"Steven, you're a riot." Amethyst comments.

"I'm suddenly having second thoughts about bringing Steven on this mission... Marcus I'm fine with but-" Pearl worriedly starts to say before Garnet stops her.

"Shhh… just look at him." She points to Steven, who proceeds to strike a pose. I chuckle and shake my head at how he looks. "Now let's go find a gemstone." Garnet proceeds to lead us down a path.

As we walk, I decide to take in the scenery. For as far as I can see, all I spot is just thick brushes of leaves and giant strawberry's. Normally people would immediately brush this off since its just fruit, no matter how big, but what I find most interesting is the fact that there are literally hundreds of different melee weapons littered across the entire countryside from swords, to spears and maces.

"Unbelievable, this was once a Gem battlefield, now its wild strawberries as far as the eye can see! Oh, that's what I love about the Earth!" she happily exclaims as she does a little twirl.

"Yep, if there's one thing mother nature is good at," I vault over a giant strawberry, "It's reclaiming her land. After all, all the City's and infrastructures humanity has made over the decades have to be maintained carefully over time. Otherwise grass like this," I reach down and tear out a handful, "Will chip through the concrete and steal, throwing years of work out the window." I say as I let the grass blow away in the wind. It's still interesting and cool when you think about it. We have all this super tough, strong concrete and steel to use yet after only a few years, grass and other parts of vegetation could find the tiniest cracks they have and completely force them open and apart. You never really know at first glance that such fragile grass can be so destructive given enough time.

"Earth is such a beautiful place. Maybe this will be a light mission after all. Oomph!" Pearls sudden grunt points me back to the front of the group, finally taking notice of the giant upsides down pyramid before us.

"Maybe not." Garnet shoots down Pearls declaration. _'It's never an easy mission.'_ Garnet proceeds to summon some sort of item in her hands. Taking a closer look, it's the same shape as the pyramid itself. She proceeds to place it in some sort of hole, a perfect fit for the item as the door opens.

"Woah!"

"You got that right, Steven." The entire room we go into is a massive expanse with weird carvings all over the place, some depicting of battles while others probably are depictions of specific people

"Woah!" Steven yells again. "Steven's the best!"

"'Steven's the best!'" Before I could ask him why, an echo comes back.

"Why thank you, temple." I smile and pat his head as I walk in.

"You're a doof." Amethyst comments from behind me. I grab a flare and slide it against the door, making it burst into a bright light, effectively freaking everyone out besides Garnet. The room illuminates with red fire before I toss it in and turn on the flashlight attachment of my rifle and start looking around.

So far, the only thing of interest in the room besides the wall carvings is some sort of pedestal in the middle of the room. "Hey, what's this thing? It's like a cool floaty triangle thing."

And Steven's right next to it.

"Whatever it is, you probably shouldn't touch it." Pearl warns him as Amethyst yawns.

"Yeah, Steven. Be careful what you touch. Place like this is bound to be booby-"

*Rumble*

Before I can finish, the entire place starts to shake as the gems run over to Steven. "Trapped." I move over to them as well.

"Steven! What have we told you about touching magical things?" Pearl yells to him over the loud rumbling all around us.

"Definitly… always… never do it!" Before anyone else can say anything else, we all suddenly become weightless before we are sucked straight into a hole in the roof. As we are quickly pulled through a narrow corridor, I hold my rifle in my left hand while I summon one of my swords in the other. I try to stab the walls around us to catch my sword in something to stop me or to jam it into the stone itself. Nothing works but it does slow me down with my sword making loud scratching sounds as I continue to fly up, which after we went in felt like we were falling down.

The ground comes up quickly so I throw my sword and grip my rifle tightly. I hit the ground hard on my feet but I quickly roll forward lessen the damage. All I feel is a slight soreness in my feet in my crouch. _'That was close.'_ Releasing a breath of air, I stand up and take a look around, immediately spotting the others are with me as well. My flare from earlier followed us and taps on the ground as well next to me.

The entire room is suddenly engulfed in light from both my flare and torches as all around us they catch ablaze. With the light now eliminating us, I turn off my flash light. With a look around, all the walls are completely filled with doorways.

"Looks like we're gonna have to split up." Amethyst says

"Right. Steven and I will stay right here where it seems to be safe, while you guys go and solve the mystery of this place." Pearl proposes while gently pulling Steven toward her.

"Wait, I want to help solve the mystery!" Steven however doesn't want to stay.

"Yeah, c'mon Steven, let's solve the mystery." Amethyst agrees with him and picks him up effortlessly over her head.

"Yeah, mystery solvers!"

"No, no no-no-no. You two are a disaster waiting to happen." Pearl grabs him back, holding him against her torso. I sigh. _'This is getting us nowhere. We should get moving soon… Although I will agree with you Pearl on the Amethyst-Steven duo team.'_

"Steven goes with me." Garnet orders. I smile at her declaration. _'Well there's an idea.'_ I think as I shine my light down the dark hallways.

"Really? Awesome!" Steven is no doubt happy with the turn of events.

"But remember, this is a serious mission." She keeps him on track.

"Understood. Serious Steven!" I don't know what he's planning but it doesn't look like it's going to work with him being carried by Pearl like that. "Pearl, can you put me down?" he asks her.

"Wha-? Oh, yes, of course." She complies and gently places him down.

"I need to be standing or else it doesn't work. Serious Steven: Activate!" he declares with his arms completely outstretched in front of him, walking with them still up. I continue to look as he walks past me.

"Alright. With that decided, let's get moving. The faster we get through these, the faster we find the exit and get out." I say as I head for the nearest door.

"Marcus! Are you sure you'll be alright alone?" Pearl calls out to me.

I turn around but continue to walk back, "Relax Pearl. I've dealt with mystery situations like this before. Not as big but still in the blind just the same. I'm sure everything will be just-"

*Slam!*

"Fine." I say to the stone wall in front of me. Looking around, I find myself in one of the doorways.

"Marcus!" I hear Pearl on the other side followed by some rapid tapping. "Are you alright?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I tap the wall a couple times. "Looks like it's not budging. Whoever's going with who, is staying them. Once you go throw one of the doorways, your committed to it. Good luck everyone!" I yell back.

"Good luck." Steven and Garnet wish me luck.

"See you on the other side." Amethyst calls.

"Be careful." Pearls warns worriedly.

"Thanks." I call back. With the pleasantry's put of the way, I move the only way I can: Forward. I light another flare and drop it at my feet so I can find my way back in case I have to back track. I shoulder my rifle with the light still on to illuminate my path as I move. For a little bit the hallway is still the same over and over again but the wall I walk up to gives away for me.

My first obstacle apparently is a large room with what looks like Ice littering every single point of the floor. Like the whole floor is completely frozen over. Beyond that, nothing seems out of the ordinary.

"No way it's that easy." Carefully moving, I reach forward and tap the barrel of my gun on the ice.

Nothing happens but it is definitely ice and slippery.

"Some type of balance test?" I question to no one in particular. Racking the bolt back on my M4, I grab the 5.56 mm out of the air. Flicking it into the air a couple times, I slide the bullet along the ice slowly.

The round scraps along the ice until it settles on the ice motionless. Waiting a few seconds, nothing happens.

"Seriously can't be that easy." I check my combat knife on my hip and make sure it's ready for me to pullout and use in a moment's notice should I need it. With that, I carefully make my way forward, checking my surroundings in case some sort of ice monster suddenly appears out of the ground to kill me. _'You never know.'_ Walking across the ice is a bit tricky because it's so slippery but it isn't long before I make it to where my bullet rests. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary about it, I pocket the round and sling my rifle. "Seriously. What type of trap is this? There's nothing. What? Expecting me to slip and break my- FUCK!"

*SHINK!*

With fast reflexes I am proud as hell to have, I am now hanging over an expanse of spikes littering the next floor under me with my knife jammed to the hilt in the ice. Taking a second to catch my breath, I look around and find out what exactly the trap is now. There are long columns of ice all connected in lines and pathways around the room while the rest are completely hollowed out. Looking back to where I walked from, it was pure luck that the solid pathway was roughly in a straight line to where I am now. "So… that's how you wanna play, huh?" I ask the world because that's what got me in my position right now. "Classic 'the top area all looks the same but one wrong step sends you to your grave' shtick right? Well no dice. I've had practice." Swinging back and forth, I manage to propel myself up and catch the top of the floor before pulling myself up. Reaching back I pull my knife from the wall. "Thank you video games." I compliment as I wipe the knife off my sleeve. "But the thing with games and real life," I grab the bullet I threw earlier and toss it a couple times for me to catch. "I have more options." With that said, I roll it across the ground where I last saw the most solid path. It goes for a few feet before the ice suddenly cracks under it and sends it below. "Gotcha." I walk along its path, until I stop where I fell. From there I grab my rifle and start sweeping it along the ground, making sure to keep a firm grip on it so I don't lose it but firm enough on the ground to trigger the collapsing ice.

I'm in the room for a few more minutes with a sore back from being hunched over but I finally make it to the next door. "Phew. Man that was crazy. A little time consuming but alright none the less." I start walking through the next hallway to my next obstacle, dropping another flare as well. The door comes into view, same as the last one. "Alright, what now." Looking into the room, it seems just as unassuming as the other room except no ice. This time the walls are all completely smooth with no carvings whatsoever. "Let's what you got for me." I say as I stroll to the center of the room. Nothing happens and I see the other door completely open. "Still too easy." I comment and start walking to it. _'Pretty sure as soon as I get close to the door it's going to-'_

The door slams shut and I hear mechanical 'whiring' and 'clicking'. "Knew it."

*Shink*

Something briefly flashes through my vision. My sunglasses break in half and fall off my face. Looking down to my ruined glasses then to the right, I see an arrow embedded in the ground. Following its trajectory, I find a part of the smooth wall gave way to a square hole with an even smaller hole in it before it closes. I accidentally take a step back.

Something gives under my foot. _'Pressure plate.'_ More holes open up.

"Shit." After I curse, I jump back as arrows litter the spot I was just at. However more of the ground gives way and before I know it I'm running and dodging like crazy, tripping more and more pressure plates as hundreds of arrows trail me. _'Fuck! What the hell do I do?! Is there a button I need to press or… wait.'_

AS I continue to dodge, I notice that wherever a group of the arrows come from, a hole opens up on the opposite wall, revealing a glowing button. "Well, I got nothing else to lose." Taking off my rifle, I switch to single fire, aim and shoot the first button I see. My aim is true and the panels associated with it lock-up. "Gotcha now." I continue to move and shoot more and more buttons, lessening the amount of holes trying to kill me. _'Alright… I got this now.'_

"Argh!" My cockiness however proves my undoing as pain immediately shoots through my shoulder, forcing me to roll on the ground a little. I hesitate only a little before I bolt onto my feet again to continue dodging. I move and look towards my right shoulder to find an arrow jutting out. To clarify, my gems are on the outside of my shoulders, pointing away from me while the arrow is jutting out of my shoulder from in front of me. Without time to properly take out the arrow, I just grab it and pull it out in one go. "MMMMM!" I grunt loudly in pain but I ignore it and continue moving. .Tossing the arrow away, I grip my rifle and I look around again. To my horror, the previous panels that were locked up are open again and firing. _'Shit. Have to do it all in one go or they reset.'_ With my goal firmly set in mind, I start to defeat this trap. I focus solely on shooting and moving, completely ignoring the pain in my shoulder as I hit buttons left and right. There are so many of the buttons and I manage to take note that as more and more panels close, the arrows start to shoot in more concentrations of the remaining holes. It isn't until there's one panel left shooting a continuous stream of arrows that I defeat the obstacle with a cost. I shoot the last button, stopping the stream of arrows all together but I stopped just enough that an arrow finds its home in my side, making me crouch in pain.

I hear more mechanical 'whiring' and I look up to my happiness that the door to the next hallway opens. Not wanting to be here anymore, I get up right and take off. As soon as I make it through the door, drop my rifle and collapse onto the ground. With deep heavy painful breaths, I prop myself against the wall to examine myself. The pain in my shoulder throbs a bit but that's not what I'm worried about. Looking down, I see an arrowhead peaking through the flesh on the right side. Looking a bit closer, I breathe a sigh of relief albeit a little painfully as I notice the arrow only hit soft flesh. _'Can't move with this in my side all the time. It could tear up my insides and who knows what I'll be facing next. I don't know how long these arrows have been in storage and I don't know if they're poisoned. I need to move now.'_ With my decision firmly set in mind, I gently move myself onto my knees. I grasp the shaft of the arrow behind me with my left hand and the arrow itself with my right. The wound throbs with the slight movements of my touching them but I prepare myself for the worst.

*Snap*

"Ahhhh!" I groan out as I snap the arrow off the shaft. With a deep breath, I pull out the shaft as well. "AHHHHHHH!" I yell even louder. Tossing both away, I lay back against the wall with heavy breaths of air. Taking a moment to collect myself, I examine my wounds. To my dismay, both wounds bleed fairly quickly but not enough to cause blood loss unless I were leave them like that for hours at least. _'Shit… need to stop the bleeding…possibly prevent infection as well… but with what?'_ My thoughts start to run wild with options until one sticks firmly in my head to my horror. At the thought, my eyes widen as I slowly reach behind me and grab the two items in question.

With a flick of my wrist, the flare sparks to life as I grip my knife tightly in my other hand.

* * *

Pain. That's all I'm thinking right now as I hobble towards the next obstacle. I was forced to cauterize my wounds with the burning blade that's now resting back in its sheathe. I'm severely in pain right now but now I don't have to worry about lasting permanent damages to me in the future and I won't have to worry about blood staining everything I have or screwing with my progress. If I have to grab anything in the next obstacle, I don't need bloody fingers to grease my grip.

The door comes into view. In the next room, the walls aren't in a triangle but parallel to each other. "Let's get this over with." I mutter and walk in. It doesn't beat around the bush this time as the door immediately slams shut and the walls begin to close in. "Man, this cliché of a trap." I say. As the walls slowly close in, I start looking around and see if there's anything that even hints to an off switch. The side walls are out of the question and so are the doors at the end of my hallway of doom. However I spot a tile on the ceiling slightly jutting out. With nothing else around, that's my goal. I grab my rifle and fire at it, only to see the bullet ricochet off. _'Damn. Gotta figure out a more direct way.'_ Slinging my rifle, I look around some more. I try to wall jump off the closing walls but my wounds flare up too much for me too concentrate. "Damnit. What else?!" I growl in frustration. Soon the walls are close enough for me to touch them at the same time. _'That's it!'_ With a smile, I place my back against one of the walls and my feet on the other. I shimmy my way up the walls until I manage to make it to the ceiling. I punch the tile just before the walls manage to squish any part of me. I slide down the walls as they retract and land with a grunt. I look towards the opposite wall and see the door opening. "Finally." Making my way through the door, I hope in my head that that was the last one. _'Please follow the rule of three. Please follow the rule of three. Please follow the rule of three.'_ As soon as the door opens, my mood deflates considerably. Not only does the room look exactly like the one we were in before we went into the doorways, but that theory I proven true as I see the flare still lit in the middle of the room. Slowly limping over to it, I reach down and grab flare, desperately hoping that it's a figment of my imagination and that it'll disappear.

It doesn't.

My rifle clangs to the ground just as I hear another door open. "Phew! Now that that's over, let's see where- Marcus!" I hear Pearl run up to me from behind. "I'm so glad you made it! How did-" she trails off as she sees my beaten form and carrying the flare. Her eyes widen at the glowing object. "Is that…?"

"Yes." I wearily say. "It's the exact same flare I used at the beginning when we first entered." I look straight into each others eyes, our blue eyes staring at each other. "We went in a complete circle."

She looks down, trying to contemplate what she found out. Another door opens, diverting our attention to Amethyst walking through. "Man, that was a hassle. 'Least now it's over with." She takes notice of us. "Hey guys! Glad to see you made it! Now we just need to…" she rails off as she takes note of our expressions. "What's going on? Geez Marcus. You look like you were thrown in a wringer." She says. I toss the flare to her where she easily catches it. "What's this?"

"The flare." At her confused expression, I clarify. "Specifically, the flare I used at the very beginning of this place."

"What?!" she exclaims in surprise as he drops the flare.

"We went in a complete circle Amethyst." Pearl tells her.

"No way!" she tries to object and takes off into another doorway. As that one closes, we hear another door opening. It's Steven and Garnet. Garnet is no worse for wear but Stevens shirt and hair are lightly singed.

"Garnet, there you are! The doors and rooms here make no sense, they all bring you here!" Pearl runs over and proceeds to inform them on the situation.

Amethyst runs back in looking haggard. "Get me out of here!" she yells and runs back in.

"There are sixteen doors, and we entered from the northeast and went through three consecutive rooms in a straight line..." By this point in Pearls deduction, Amethyst returns with a bear trap on her head, which she removes and runs through another door. "But arrived back here out the southern-most door, which could only mean... well, I don't know what it means! I-" Amethyst comes back in but this time frozen in a block of ice. "This is a death trap!" Pearl breaks down and proceeds to chip the ice off Amethyst.

"W-What do we do?" Steven exclaims loudly as I move over to Amethyst and join in the breaking. Too weak to summon my sword, I use the butt of my rifle to chip away the ice. Lighting a new and my last flare, I push it against the ice in hopes of melting it enough to break it. "I can't!" Steven exclaims loudly.

"Steven." Pearl stops her chipping away to acknowledge the distraught boy.

"Its okay." Garnet tries to reassure him but he will have none of it.

"No, no it's not, you were all right about me. I wanted to do this so bad, but now I feel like I'm gonna throw up. This is just like the teacups!"

' _The teacups? I remember that. My part of the ride slammed into that Arcade place.'_

"Oh Steven, I-I didn't really mean that." Pearl attempts to apologize.

"Wait! Ah! Wait you guys, what if this _is_ just like the teacups? That's why we're getting so lost. That's why I'm feeling so sick. All the rooms are spinning us around so we end up here!" I stop my hitting and turn back to him. _'It's an idea. Explains why we ended up back here so easily.'_ Garnet doesn't say a word. She instead moves over to the center of the room and proceeds to beat the floor, creating deeper and deeper divots in the concrete until the floor starts to crumble.

I lose my grip on my rifle and flare as we all fall through the broken floor to land on floating upside down pyramids spinning around the room. Garnet and Steven land on one together, Amethyst in her ice prison slams into one, breaking her free of it and grabbing onto another one next to it, while Pearl lands on another as I grab the edges of it. She quickly reaches down and pulls me up onto the platform with her. She looks to me and I give her a nod in thanks. She looks around to see the intricate workings of this place.

"This is unbelievable!" she starts as she brings up a projection of the place through her gem. "This Gem-powered mechanism! It's manipulating the rooms above. Every room we entered spun us until we came back to the central chamber! It's just like the teacups ride at Funland!"

"Steven already figured that out!" Garnet yells to us.

Pearl blushes in embarrassment. "Oh." She simply says and hides her projection as she looks down.

"Hey." She looks at me. "It's not exact… but it's close." I say in an attempt to reassure her. She smiles at my attempt. My attention shifts from her to the gem throwing the human sized missile at the center pillar. "The hell?" I question. She shifts her attention as well to what's happening.

Steven lands on the center obelisk and try's to rip out the gem in the center but he seems to be having trouble. I grab my combat knife and flip it around so I am holding the blade. "*Whistles* Steven!" he turns to me. "Use this!" I throw the knife. It twirls through the air until it stabs itself next to the gem. He grabs it and proceeds to try and chisel it out of its place. The top of the obelisk suddenly spins around; distracting Steven enough to where the gem he's holding onto glows then ejects itself. Before we know it, the entire place begins to glow and dissipate as they get sucked into the gem.

* * *

I wake up looking into the bright sky as I lay on a soft bush with something on top of me. Looking down, my eyes widen to see its Pearl. Before I can do or say anything, she suddenly jerks awake, noticing she's on me as well.

"Hey."

"Ah!" she squeaks and quickly jumps off me. "I'm so sorry! I-I-I didn't mean to-!"

"Pearl."

"…Yes?"

"It's alright." She relaxes at my words. "It's all good. No harm no foul." I say and try to get up but the pushes thorns hook into my clothes. "A little help."

"Oh! Of course." She agrees and extends her hand, which I graciously take and allow her to pull me up.

"Thanks."

She nods at me before frantically looking around. "Wait! Where's Steven? Steven?! Where is he?"

"Ahh, he's over here!" Amethyst calls to us. Pearl immediately makes her way over to Steven and bubbles the gem he's holding.

"Ah, I'd say you handled that adventure very well." She says as she sends it away with a flourish.

With a soft chuckle, I make my way over to a nearby stone and lay myself against it. Right now I'm sore as hell from all the dodging and running I did, the slight loss of blood has tired me out more than I anticipated and my closed wounds throb.

"They're in my eyes again! Ahhhhh!" Steven yells as he gets attacked with more butterflies. He runs around a bit until he falls right next to me. Reaching over, I gently brush the butterfly's off him and pat his back.

"You alright?" I ask. He looks up to me and nods. "Good." I reply and gently lay back against the rock and close my eyes.

"Hey, Marcus. You alright?" I hear Amethysts voice. Opening my eyes, I see the gems standing over me with Pearl holding my rifle to me. _'Huh. Thought I lost it.'_ Grabbing barrel of the gun, I place it on the ground and try to push myself off the ground. I would have fallen if Pearl hadn't caught me.

"Thanks." I say as I stand to my full height.

"No worries."

Taking a look around, I fully see we are back in the strawberry fields and there is a large crater close to us with rubble all over the place. "So what did happen?" I ask.

"The temple exploded." Garnet nonchalantly replies.

"Ah. Enough said." I confirm with a nod. I turn around and see the warp pad some distance away. "Alright, I don't know about you, but I wanna get back home." I say and walk towards it.

"Show us your injuries."

I stop at Garnets words. Slowly I turn around to see them all standing with worried looks on their faces. "Nothing get by you, huh Garnet?" I say with a smirk.

She only shakes her head no.

I sigh, "Very well." I place my M4 on my back gently lift up my shirt to show my side wound. Steven and Amethyst are horrified, Pearl places her hands over her mouth with wide eyes, and Garnet only grimaces. Placing my shirt down, I stretch the neckline of my shirt to show the shoulder wound. Their looks intensify. "I wasn't as fast as I thought when it comes to arrows."

"Oh my." Pearl exclaims and moves over to me, examining my injuries. "And you didn't think to tell us?!" she scold me loudly, making me flinch.

"It wouldn't have mattered much. We have no supplies, no medical equipment, and you guys would have focused more on me than actually getting us out." She looks away because she's knows I'm right. "I'm sorry I kept you guys in the dark but I stand by what I did."

No one has a retort for my explanation except Pearl. "You are a stubborn human, you know that?" she says with a frown and crossed arms.

I smile, "Just one of my many traits." That gets some of them to chuckle. "Now, if you want to make sure I'm 'really' alright. Let's go." I nod towards the warp pad.

"Sounds good to me." Amethyst says as she passes by me.

Before I can move forward, Steven taps me. I look towards him to see him holding my knife to me. "Oh. Thanks man." I take and sheathe it.

We all begin making our way back to the pad while Pearl stays close to me in case I collapse or fall.

"I'm sorry."

I turn to Steven. "Sorry… about what?"

"For setting off the trap. If… if I hadn't touched the triangle… then we wouldn't have had to split up and you wouldn't…" he tries to say but it sounds like he's going to burst into tears any second now.

"Hey hey hey hey." I say as I gently kneel in front of him. "Look at me." He picks up his head and I can see tears pooling at the sides of his eyes. "Whether we liked it or not, that trap was getting set off. There was nothing in that first room we went into that could have led us to the gem. We needed to set off that trap." I firmly tell him, not wanting at all any blame to befall on him.

"But-!"

"He's right." We look to see the gems staring at us. "That room would have given us zero indication as to where the gem would be. We needed to go through that in order to find out about the gem in the first place. It was inevitable, with or without you." Garnet explains.

"See." I place my hand on his shoulder, "Look man, this isn't my first rodeo and I've suffered worse. I know you didn't mean for this to happen and I don't blame you at all alright? You're too good of a person to wish harm on me like that. I 'know' you didn't mean too." I do what I can to make him feel better.

He gives me a smile and wipes his tears, "Okay."

"Good." I pat his shoulders and stand up. "Now c'mon, lets get home so I can get some rest and you can probably catch an episode of that show you like so much. 'Crying Breakfast Friends' or something like that?"

"Wooo!" he woops and takes off to the portal and walk after him, the pain starting to subside. _'I really don't get that show.'_

* * *

"He's a good man that one." Garnet comments as she, Amethyst and Pearl watch the two walk off.

"Yeah. Definitely much cooler than Greg." Amethyst comments. "What do you think Pearl?"

"…"

"Pearl?" Garnet looks to her friend, who snaps out of her daze at the mention of her name.

"Oh! Yes?" she quickly asks.

"You alright, P?"

"Yes, yes I'm fine just…"

"Just what?" Garnet asks.

"Just… he's so interesting. Never have I met a human so… caring yet at the same time could be so… ruthless and cunning should the need arise." Pearl answers and crosses her arms. "He is something."

"Yeah," Garnet says as she walks after Steven and Marcus. "He sure is.

"Enough talking! I'm hungry." Amethyst yells as she sprints after them.

Pearl stands there, staring at the human-gem duo, but mostly Marcus with a hint of worry in her heart as she catches up to them.

 **Still surprised how long this is but not deterred from it. I was pretty excited for this one for quite awhile since I started writing this story. I was mostly excited because this would be a time for Marcus to show his skill with his rifles but I'm more than a little surprised at what I came up with in terms of Marcus's obstacle rooms. In any case, because of his injuries, I'm more than likely going to have him sit out a few episodes so he can recover. Which ones?**

 **Wait and find out. However that also presents a new situation that I may use in the future. At some points when an opportunity presents itself I may have Marcus sit out a few episodes here and there so I can progress the storyline a little more quickly. It's not that I won't find content for me to use during all the episodes but I don't want to take the chance of at some point completely falling out of interest in writing just because I'm not where I want to be. I especially want to get to the end of season 1 because from there I have some pretty good ideas I want to make a reality but I really don't want to end up getting bored and stop writing before then. I did that before with another story not on this site a couple years back and it still aggravates me that I never got to finish it. I hope you guys understand.**

 **If there's an episode you guys really want me to use in the future, send me a PM or say it in a review and I'll see what I can do. No guarantees but at least it gives me an idea.**

 **Also note, if wasn't obvious enough, I don't use proofreaders and I don't fully reread my work. I get bored looking through it all again and it should explain to you all at some points where there are grammar errors and such. I'm not too beat up over it since its because of that that I'm able to get these out so quick.**

 **With that said and done, have fun reading.**


	7. 7 Giant Woman

**Want to make it clear that the only thing I own of this story is Marcus Castellanos. Everyone else and the show Steven Universe belong to their respective owners.**

"You alright, Marcus?"

"Yeah, I'm good." I say to Garnet as I move my arm in a circle. "It's been awhile since I've been with humans of that magnitude again. Still, I prefer you guys." I say to her while tapping the back of my hand to her arm.

"Thanks again for your help." She thanks me.

"No problem."

I went with Garnet on one of her missions because she said she needed a helping hand more akin to me. What that means is that she needed to access some sort cave in order to find out where exactly the next set of gems are, however that very same cave was right next to a Rave taking place. I had to move through the bustling dance crazy, possibly high, bodies of people while subtly clearing a way for Garnet to enter the cave and then had to make sure no one disturbed her.

I may have had to choke hold a couple people to knock them out. Mostly teens that were either high as the heavens or drunk off their asses and wandered into the wrong area.

It wasn't too terribly bad but it was the first time I've been out since my injuries at the maze so I was little worried that my wounds would slow me down but thankfully nothing happened. What also worried me was the fact that Garnet asked me to leave my pistols behind. I was a little vocal about it but she strictly said to go non-lethal, not even my swords at all were to come out. I begrudgingly went still so I could get out of the temple already.

"So we got the location?" I ask her as we make our way through the forest towards the warp pad.

"Yes. The locations of the heaven and earth Geode beetles are at the sky spire and at the bottom of boiling Lava Lake." She looks to me as we stop in front of the warp pad. "You'll be going to the sky spire for the heaven beetle."

"I won't fault your logic." I say as we step onto the warp pad. "Humans aren't to resistant to lava."

"Exactly." Garnet activates the pad, sending us back home.

* * *

' _Ahhh the temple. I remember this place. I was held up for way too long here from my last mission.'_ As it turns out, my paranoia during the maze rang true. The arrows were very very old for being dormant for so long, so dust, dirt and possible bacteria latched onto them. Pearl scolded me on my rush patch job on me. She definitely didn't find the appeal in burning one's self in order to close their wounds.

However, she did take note that any mass bacteria present in the wound was gone because of the burning so she accepted my action because it saved me a lot of trouble in the long haul.

'" _But that doesn't mean I have to like it." She said. I wouldn't fault her there. Hurt like hell but at least it meant I only had to deal with being incapacitated for a few weeks rather than months.'_ Steven was nice enough to let me stay in his bed while I recuperated but it also meant I missed out on some interesting adventures they had.

A little while after I got injured Amethyst kept sneaking out when we weren't looking but Steven and I spotted her. I was still grounded to the bed so Steven went to find out what's going on. Turns out Amethyst wanted some more excitement for herself so she participated in some sort of underground wrestling ring. Steven naturally joined in under the guise 'tiger millionaire' but it wasn't long until Garnet and Pearl found out, who weren't happy with Amethyst's disregard for their secret existence and all, but in the end they became good sports for both Amethyst and Steven.

Next, Steven got a new pet. I still remember what happened the first time I met him.

* * *

 _*Flashback*_

 _I was sleeping away while the gems went on another mission. My skin was healed at this point but a small 'bout of sickness started to take a hold on me so Pearl specifically stressed that I stay in bed to avoid agitating it or catching something else by accident._

 _I was not expecting a very large ball of pink fur and wide eyes staring right at me when I woke up._

"…"

"…"

 _We started at each, neither one said a word._

 _I slowly reached forward to see if it was a dream or not._

" _Rawr."_

 _It was not. "Oh god! Oh god! Oh- Argh!" I bolt out of bed, trying to get away from the animal that somehow got in. Unfortunately, in my frantic running, I completely forgot that I was on the second floor and moving towards the stairs. So naturally when someone runs at stairs, they tend to fall down them._

 _I fell down the small flight of stairs and landed hard on the living room floor, right in front of everyone else._

" _Marcus!" Pearl yells as she runs to me. "What are you doing out of bed?! I told you not to leave it!"_

" _But-I-pink-big- next to-lion-" I frantically say, still scared out of my mind._

" _Oh! Lion's here. I was wondering where he went." I stare incredulously at the child so calm about the animal as he makes his way up the stairs. "Lion! There you are!" he hugs it like nothing. "Did you scare Marcus out of the bed? Bad lion. You don't do that to people unless they try to hurt. Marcus would never do that." He says to it as he hugs it again yet it just stands there staring at him. I stare at the others in a mixture of confusion and surprise._

" _Steven found him in the desert." Pearl answers for me first._

" _He wants to keep it." Garnet finishes. Amethyst nods as she carries a gem on a pillow or something._

 _Still staring at them in confusion, I have no idea what to say whatsoever. Only when I turn back do I find Steven and Lion right next to me._

 _No one says a thing and at that point the gravity of the situation hits me with what I've learned and happened._

 _I pass out in both a mixture of shock, confusion, and a lot of pain from both moving and falling down the steps._

 _*End Flashback*_

* * *

Seriously I almost came close to voiding myself of everything in me when I woke up to a giant pink lion starring right at me. Naturally some things happened, confusion ensued but in the end Steven was able to use his new pet lion to stop a freakish land-manipulating gem from taking over all of beach city. Still freaky having a lion next to me at nearly all hours of the day but he's pretty friendly so things have calmed down now.

Finally, as a reward for a mission success they went on, Steven took the gems to the arcade place I crashed into when we rode the teacups. Amethyst naturally cheated her way on one of the machines, Pearl didn't understand how to play and Garnet… she went overboard. I know there are people in the world so addicted to games they spend days on end playing it non-stop, I never figured Garnet as one. According to Steven, Garnet stayed all night at the arcade place playing this dancing, movement game non-stop. The gems were dealing with a monster attack while Garnet was indisposed so Steven had to try to snap her out of it to get her to help. In order to do that, he smashed the arcade machine, which of course pissed off the owner, Mr. Smiley, while the gems fought the monster. Steven was going to have to work at the arcade in order to pay for the arcade machines that were broken, or he would have if when no one was looking, I went to the place and payed for the damages. _'I like Steven. He doesn't need to waste time sweeping the floors and cleaning the place up._ Oh, also apparently Garnet has three eyes. Go figure.

After that, I was ready to start fighting again so when Garnet came back to say she was going to find the location to some more gems, I volunteered to help. She was a bit hesitant but allowed me, with some restrictions but I was happy none the less to be out of the house.

And now we are back home.

"So, any ideas on how we are going to do this?" I ask her as we walk to the kitchen.

"I have some ideas on how we can-"

"Ooh! Ooh! Did you bring me anything?" Steven interrupts her in his excitement. She pulls out a rock and gives it to him. _'Where did she get that?'_ "Whoa, a rock! Thanks, Garnet."

Pearl walks up to us, "So, was your mission a success?"

"It was." I answer.

"We located the Geode beetles of Heaven and Earth. We should split up to retrieve them." Garnet tells us.

"Well I'm going with not Pearl." Amethyst says as Steven for some reason starts biting his rock.

"Well that's perfect because I don't want to go with grammatically incorrect people anyway." Pearl retorts. _'Whoa. What happened while we were gone?'_

"Is she talking about me?" Steven asks with the rock still in his mouth.

"No, I don't think so man." I say and pat his shoulder.

"You four go together, I go alone." Garnet decides for everyone.

"What? Why?" Amethyst and Pearl ask in a slightly surprised tone.

"The Earth Beetle's is at the bottom of the boiling lava lake, and only I can swim in lava." With that said, Garnet proceeds to conjure up a pair of goggles over her visor, where the strap hugs her afro hair, giving it a bit more of a curve to it. "You'll find the Heaven Beetle at the top of the Sky Spire. It's safer."

"You mean boring-er." Amethyst says with somewhat of annoyance.

"You mean more boring." Pearl corrects her.

"So you agree with me." Amethyst says with a slight smile.

"Ugh! Come on, you three, let's go." Pearl says in annoyance at her compatriot's attitude and heads to the portal. Steven puts down his rock and he and Amethyst meet Pearl on the pad.

"Hold up guys." I say, getting their attention. "I need to get some gear, since _someone_ wanted me to go bare-handed." I say while emphasizing in Garnets direction and head to the door.

"You know I had to." Garnet says as I pass her.

"*Sigh* I know." I agree with her as I open the door and head out. "Doesn't mean I have to like it!" I call back and jump down the stairs. As I walk towards my truck I think on what I'm going to bring. _'Alright, my jacket Beretta's are inside those of course go back in there holsters in my jacket. What else should I bring? Garnet said Spire so we will be climbing something. I'll grab my ice pickaxe and some rope to go along. That deals with the climbing issue. Need a gun that doesn't weigh a lot so it doesn't slow me or get in my way as I climb.'_ As I pull down the hatch, I smile at my choice. "Got it." With my decision final, I grab the case.

* * *

"—NY... ! Oomph!" Steven falls onto the ground.

"You alright buddy?" I extend my hand to help him up. He takes it and I pull him up as he gives me a nod. "Good." I say and grab my Brügger & Thomet MP9 with both hands. This MP9 is a lightweight machine pistol, or submachine gun whichever you want to classify it as, that can be fired one handed or somewhat stability but max stability with both hands. That's why I got the grip on it, no other attachments, stock is folded and the best part is that it uses 9mm bullets, cheap when compared to more high caliber rounds used in rifles. It's lightweight and compact size will allow me to move with ease with this weapon and give me enough to work with should I be forced to use it one handed.

"Woah... is this where the Heaven Beetle lives?" Steven asks. It's no surprise it is but I'm going to say I was right in bringing my climbing supplies. This place is massive and tall with large staircases adorning the entire way up to the top and I'm pretty sure I see some pieces of land floating in the air. _'If any a place for something called the "Heaven Beetle", this would be it.'_

"Apparently." Pearl says.

"All the way at the top." Amethyst comments as well.

"I can see that." I voice my thoughts on this place.

"So, when you fuse, do you turn into a _giant_ giant woman, or just a regular-sized giant woman?" Steven asks to my confusion. "Does one of you control the right arm and the other control the left arm?"

"Steven, what are you talking about?" I ask looking at him.

"Pearl and Amethyst can fuse into a giant woman!" he exclaims loudly, pointing at said gems.

For more clarification, I look to said gems, "Help me?"

"Well, what Steven is talking about is that when gems fuse, they have the power to become an even more powerful warrior than they are alone. More specifically, Amethyst and I can fuse to become a giant gem warrior by the name of Opal." She explains to me with a smile, at least until she looks to Amethyst. "At least we would if some of us could fuse properly." She no doubt makes it obvious who this someone is. Amethyst only scoffs in response.

"Oh, that's cool." I comment. _'Fusion. It does have its benefits.'_ I look towards the two gems to see them slightly glaring at each other. _'Although I'm sure you have to be somewhat willing to fuse to make it work.'_

"Come on you guys. We're burning daylight." I say and push forward towards some stairs.

Pearl and Amethyst keep up with me, "Wait, these are extremely important questions." Steven says, no doubt referencing his previous set of questions, and then jogs to catch up to us.

We spend a few minutes moving along the base of the spire trying to find some stairs for us to climb, all the while Steven continues to ask the others to fuse and even makes excuses to try and get them to. He even goes as far as to ask for a piggyback ride. "What about if you eat a hotdog? Whose stomach does it go into? Or do you share the same stomach? That would be gross."

"Steven, I really don't think these questions are necessary at this ti-"

*Rustle*

Completely dropping the conversation, I snap my guns sights on the rustling bush as the gems summon their weapons. We tense and wait to see what type of guardian or monster this place has protecting i-

"Baaaa!"

A goat. A goat jumps out of the bush and proceeds to eat a cricket, completely oblivious to the three heavily armed people behind him. I lower my gun. "False al-"

"Look out! It's a magical goat guardian! Quick, you have to form Opal! It's the only way to defeat it!" Steven cries out and pretends to cower. "Hurry before it kills us all!" Nothing is said as Steven no doubt expects the two to fuse and deal with the… 'threat.'

I pinch the bridge of my nose, "Steven… your trying to hard man." I breathe out as Pearl walks over to the goat.

"Steven, we only fuse for deadly situations, does this look like a deadly situation? Ow! Hey, bad mountain goat!" Pearl tries to explain but the goat bites her hand instead, causing Amethyst to completely lose it laughing and Steven to be a bit disappointed.

"Darn it. Aw, I'm never going to get to see Opal." After he says that, Steven proceeds to sing a song about a giant woman or something as we make our way further up the spire. As we move, on top of Steven's singing, Pearl and Amethyst are still at each other's throats, whether its scaring the other with a shark, Amethyst, or 'accidentally' knocking some rocks into the others face. Both times, I was caught in the crossfire. My pants and shoes are drenched and I would have fallen down the stairs after one of my feet caught one the falling rocks if I hadn't used my pickaxe to latch onto one of the steps. Now I'm the one leading the group up the mountain.

Interesting enough though, Steven has taken to calling the goat that's been tagging along with us Steven Jr. for whatever reason. Said goat also decides to show his proficiency at scaling mountainous areas by jumping across a bunch of floating pieces of land with ease. "Show off." I say.

"Wait up Steven Jr!" Steven yells and tries to jump across but I stop him.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa there buddy!" I place him back down. "You ain't a goat. You aren't jumping that distance alone."

"Oh, you should fuse into Opal, and then lay across the rocks like a bridge!" Steven tells the gems.

"We don't need Opal to get across." Pearl states.

"Can you do it anyway? Pleeease? It would easier, wouldn't it?" Steven begs the gems to fuse.

"No." I bluntly say as I finish tying one end of my rope to my pick. "This is." With a throw, I send my makeshift grapple over to one of the floating islands. With it secured on one of its outcropping rocks, I pull and find the small island is easy to move. As it moves against the ground we are on, I step onto it, untangling my pick. "All aboard."

* * *

No one says anything as I work to taxi us through the floating islands, having Pearl use her spear to push us either forward or away from other islands. With careful maneuvering, we manage to make it across the massive gap without any incident. The others give me their thanks for my quick thinking on the matter and we continue our journey. We make it to the base of the spire and proceed to walk up the stairs to the top of it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of stairs and about halfway up Steven is already starting to feel the effects of fatigue set in and my legs are starting to feel sore. Soon, we are almost at the top and I look directly up to see the stairs connecting to the very top of the spire. Deciding to take a shortcut, is shoulder the strap on my MP9, take out my pick with the rope still attached and throw it up.

"Uhhh, what are you doing?" Amethyst asks next me, making Steven and Pearl look as well.

"Scouting ahead." I plainly say. I tug on the rope a few times to test its hold. Feeling satisfied with it, I plant my feet along the wall and pull myself up a few feet.

"Marcus, are you sure?" Pearl asks me a little worriedly.

"I'm sure." I reply with a slight grunt as I continue moving up. "I don't want this beetle to move so the sooner we get there, the better."

"Yeah! Let's go!" Feeling a small tug on my rope, I look back to see Steven hanging on at the end. No doubt he wanted to try to climb up my rope as well but doesn't know the proper way to climb the single rope or he doesn't have the arm strength. He slowly slides back down until he falls onto his back with a small 'thud.'

"Sorry Steven. But I'm flying solo up here. Just keep moving along the stairs and I'll give you guys the all clear." I pull the rope I already used to climb up and wrap it around my arm to steady myself better before looking at the others again. "Amethyst, Pearl. Take care of Steven." They nod in confirmation before I look to him. "Steven. Take care of 'them.'" I emphasize the gems, who give me slight glares while Steven salutes me.

"Yes, sir."

"Good man." I say and continue climbing.

"Be careful." Pearl warns me from below.

"Always." With that said I continue my trek upwards in silence, the only sound being my slightly strained breathing and the stepping of my feet on the spires wall. As I climb up, at one point a massive shadow passes over me. Quickly grabbing my gun in one hand, I examine the skies for any threats. The skies are clear and there is nothing out. Taking a few more seconds to look just in case, I still find nothing so I continue moving. It isn't long after that that I make it to the top.

Without pulling myself up first, I firmly grab the rope with my left hand and the right with my machine pistol. Taking a couple breaths to steady and prepare myself, I jump up and land on top of the spire, swerving my gun left and right to spot any targets.

So far the entire place is completely devoid of life with only a large pool of water, a massive round structure with holes in it, and a very small structure in the middle of the water. I grab my pickaxe, untie the rope, wrap it around my shoulder, and hold my pick in my left hand, held high in case something jumps out at me. Slowly I examine the large structure only to find nothing of interest in it before moving towards the small temple like construct. The water looks alright and nothing looks to be swimming in it. It does look slightly murky to it but nothing really stands out. I crouch down to take a closer look at the temple and to my surprise the building is actually a small home complete with all the furnishings. _'Must be where the beetle lives. It's the only thing I can think of that could be housed here.'_ What also interests me is that the place also bongos for some reason. _'What would a beetle need bongos for.'_ Shaking my head of the thought, I do one last sweep before I deem the area clear. Slinging my gun, I walk over to the stairs and wait for the others to get there. Barely a minute passes before we all spot each other. The gems look no worse for wear but Steven looks like he's about to collapse. They look to me expectantly. "It's all clear. The place is a ghost town." I inform them.

"Any sign of the heaven beetle?" Pearl asks me. I go to answer but Steven interrupts me.

"I can't feel my legs anymore." He groans out while panting. However he suddenly gets a second wind as he looks to the small temple. "Hey, look at that!" He points out and runs over to smaller temple. "It's a tiny temple!"

"That is about the right size to hold a beetle." I comment as I lead the gems over to it.

"Check it out, it's even got a little beetle bedroom, and little beetle bongos, and a little beetle baby book." He comments on the tiny structure as he laughs a bit.

"Yeah I really don't get the last two." I mutter as Pearl begins to examine the temple as well.

"ut where's the beetle? It's supposed to be here, the heaven beetle wouldn't leave, would it? Oh, it could be anywhere!" Pearl asks worriedly to no one in particular before looking to me. "Marcus you didn't see where it went did you?"

"If he did, he would have already found it. Not standing here like the rest of us." Amethyst answers for me, much to my chagrin, from over by the large round structure.

"I can't believe your attitude, Amethyst. And now you're just slouching over here doing nothing." Pearl angrily berates the purple gem as she stalks up to her.

"Hey, it's not my fault the beetle isn't there. Why do you have to make things worse by squawking at me?!" Amethyst counters, getting close to each other.

"Baaaaa!" It's at this point the goat starts to bleat like crazy, drowning out the argument of the two gems. Steven runs over to Pearl and Amethyst so he can try to calm them down while I stay with the goat.

"Hey! What's wrong?! What's gotten into you?" I say to the goat in the hope of somehow getting it to tell me or at least indicate what's wrong. It just keep bleating loudly. _'Geez. Usually an animal only gets crazy like this unless it meets a bigger preda-'_ My train of thought ends as I spot the water beginning to bubble.

"Hey, cut it out! You're scaring Steven Jr.!" Steven stops the gems argument on the spot.

Before I can warn everyone, I am suddenly pushed back as I am sprayed with water as something big emerges from the water. Looking around I don't spot what came out of the lake at least until I look up to see a blurry figure in the sky. Before I can wipe the water from eyes, the figure is suddenly next to me and Steven Jr. is gone. My mind finally catches up to me and I find a giant bird creature has eaten the goat whole.

It takes off back into the sky for another pass at us. I bring my gun up as Pearl throws her spear at the bird, which it promptly eats like it was nothing. The bird spots me and makes a dive bomb straight for me. Not moving from my spot, I open fire on it but my bullets ricochet off its hardened beak and thick feathers.

Unfortunately for it, it misjudges the point of me and the ground so its maw stabs into the stone ground above my head and feet. Quickly, I press my left hand to the top of the jaw and my feet on the bottom, forcing it open as it tries to close them on me but also picks me up in the process. Firmly holding my position, I aim my gun down its throat.

"I hope you're hungry!" I yell and depress the trigger, sending round down its gullet. Small bits of spittle and a loud screech are my answer as it swings its head around to try and get me off it. Only when I finish unloading 30 9mm rounds down its throat do I let go, instantly sent flying out as it continues to caw in pain and take flight.

I smack the stone ground hard, rolling a few times until I come to a stop near the others. They quickly help me up to my feet. Looking back up, I see the bird do a couple circles in the air before diving towards. "I think I made it mad." I comment.

"In here, guys!" Amethyst tells us. Not complaining, we all back up into the large structure as the creature begins pecking at the building.

"You know, I promised myself I wouldn't piss off anymore birds." I off-handedly say as I reload.

"I can't believe it ate my spear like that." Pearl asks in disbelief.

"Or my bullets." I add as I rack the bolt back, loading a bullet into the chamber from its fresh magazine.

"Guys this is great! Now's the perfect time for you two to form Opal!" Steven happily says. Normally his happy attitude in the situation might have irked me a little but he brings up a good point.

"He's right. Whatever power Opal brings, it's gotta be stronger than what we've got now." I say to them. Pearl and Amethyst look to each other but in a slight grimace before nodding.

The two get into their respective dance poses. Pearl as always moves with the grace of a renowned ballerina dancer and Amethyst…

I can't help but cover Stevens eyes, much to his disappointment at finally seeing how a fusion is done. However he doesn't get to see it as the two are completely out of synch with each other and end up messing up. Their forms bright up and begin to fuse and mold with each other but at the last second they are forced apart from each other.

"So you wanna try that again? With less hitting m in the face this time?" Amethyst says sarcastically.

"Well it would have worked if your movements weren't so erratic and formless." Pearl counters.

' _Seriously guys? Now is not the time for this.'_ I mentally say as my fist tightens.

"So it's all my fault? Ho ho, you totally weren't even trying to sync with my dancing. You should know how I dance by now!" Amethyst yells at Pearl and the two begin to push each other.

At this point, my patience has run thin until it finally broke. "Will you two SHUT UP!" I yell loudly over their bickering. This gets them to stop fighting all together and look to me. "The whole time we've been on this mission you two have been at each other's throats and screwing around with each other!" They untangle themselves from their scuffle.

"But-"

"She-"

"No!" I cut them off before they could come up with any excuses. "You wanna know what's been happening as well as when you guys were messing with each other? I got hit too. The falling rocks Pearl? I almost fell down too! The shark scare Amethyst? I fell too." I reveal to them. They look away in shame that their bickering almost caused me to get hurt as well. "I don't know what's the problem you two have with each other but you have to knock it off now! In case you haven't noticed, we are in the middle of a crisis situation and if you guys don't fuse, then we are all going to-!"

Pain spikes through me before can finish talking. With my mouth slightly agape, I look down to see the creature's beak on either side of me, the sharp edges of it cutting through my shirt like tissue as well as my skin, both sides under my arms already leaking blood. The bird shot its narrow beak through the entrance that I didn't know I was so close to before and got me. I look up to see the horrified looks on all their faces, unsure of how to respond to what's happening to me. I can only think of one thing that also finishes what I was saying earlier.

"D-Die."

Before anyone could do anything, I feel myself suddenly sucked out of the building and sent hurtling through the air. I can't scream as my mind tries to make sense of where it is I am, what's going on, and what's going to happen. The flipping in the air slows down until I finally see that I am really, really, really high above the spire. As I slowly begin to free fall, I see the black mass of the bird coming straight up towards me, no doubt intent to make me its next meal. I grit my teeth knowing that in the air, I am useless and am good as gone. ' _If I'm going down… I'm taking you with me!'_ With that thought firmly in my head, I grip my MP9 tightly in my right hand and my pickaxe in the other. I unleash lead straight towards the bird, the bullets perforating the creatures body but besides a slight difference in its intended flight path, remains headlong for me. As my gun slowly runs out, I raise my pick up and get ready to attack as it opens its maw.

"Raaaaa!" I yell a war cry. I bring my weapon down just as the maw closes on me and darkness engulfs me.

* * *

"Ow! Ah! Crap! Shit!" I tumble through my dark fleshy prison, my axe long since left my hand after I buried it somewhere inside the inner workings of my predator while my guns strap tangles around me. I come to a stop on the fleshy stomach floor with my face laying against something hard. "Fuck." I groan out and slowly lift my head. The inside of this thing is surprisingly luminescent and I find what I am laying on: a skull. I jump back in surprise to see many different types of rubble and pieces of the environment crowded around the things stomach, including a goat skull. My stomach drops a little at the implication. _'Please I hope this things stomach acids aren't surprisingly effecti-'_

"Baaa!"

"Oh thank god." I say in happiness. Turning around, I spot Steven Jr. on top of a pile of refuse chewing on something. "Steven Jr. Good to see you alive, considering." I say as I limp over to the goat, reloading my weapons and gesturing to our surroundings as well. "Now that we aren't being cooked alive, maybe we can find a way out of here."

He just stares at me as he eats.

"Okay, I'll find us a way out of here." I look around to see if there's anything that either looks flimsy enough for me to cut through, or is a direct way out. "Okay nothing so far and I'm not privy to going out the back way." I comment. He just continues to chew on whatever he's eating. "What are you eating?" I ask for the hell of it, knowing I won't get an answer but still curious. Leaning in, I see that whatever it's eating is green, small and looks surprisingly like a-

"The beetle!" I exclaim loudly. It's still alive and still moving so it's definitely the Heaven beetle if its durable enough to stay alive through all the chewing. "Thanks Steven Jr. Now let me just…" I try to take the beetle but he stays firm in holding it. "C'mon Steven Jr. Be a good goat and let me- whoa!" I exclaim loudly as I manage to pull the beetle out of his jaw, causing me to fall back. I look at the little guy on my hand to see him slowly crawling. Now, normally I wouldn't like to associate myself with bugs but considering this is one that we 'really' need, and that the bright color doesn't dissuade me from it like most dark colored insects are, it's actually pretty cool. "Well, you were a hard one to find. Now I just have to- Hey!" I exclaim because the goat nearly barrels into me trying to eat the beetle again.

"Baaa!"

"Hey! No! No. No,no. This isn't for eating. You need to find something else to-" A hand bursts through the fleshy floor I am standing on. "Chew on?" I ask in confusion as more hands start to burst through. "The hell?" I say as I stare at the hand.

"Baaa!" Steven Jr. bleats loudly as one of the hands grabs him and pulls him through the floor.

"Holy… what's going on?" I ask as I back up from where he was taken from me and put the beetle in the inside of my jacket. Unfortunately, I back up right into one of the hands, which grabs both my ankles easily and pulls. "Whoa!" I yelp as I'm forced through.

* * *

A bright light blinds me and for a second freak out at the implication I'm dead but the arm around me and the bird I was just in breaking apart into dozens of pieces shoots that thought right out. More air rushes past me as I now find myself next to Steven, who looks on in wonder at who is holding me.

"Opal?" he asks. Curiously I look to my savior as well to see a four armed tall woman with light purple skin, white hair and a gem on her head and chest. _'Wait, so this is there form? This is Opal? This… is fusion?'_ The questions in my head come to a grinding halt as Opal grabs Steven and jump towards the stairs. With grace I have never seen before, she slides down the flat rail guards on the stairs while still carrying us and takes us all the way down to the bottom of the spire. As we stay there for a second, she puts us down.

"Stay low." She says in a low voice that still radiates with authority but gentleness. As Steven and I sit down, Opal pulls out Pearls spear and Amethysts whip before in a flash of light she combines the two into a bow. I look out towards where she's aiming at to find that the bird creature split off into dozens of other smaller versions of itself. Opal slowly pulls back the bow with two hands before sending an arrow flying straight towards the middle of the flock. The explodes in a flashbang effect, destroying the birds forms and making them explode into dozens of smaller flashes. Steven and I stare in amazement at the amount of power she exhibited to us in only a matter of seconds.

She walks over to us and extends a hand each to the both of us. Steven takes one and pulls himself up easy but my sides are agitated a little but I manage to nonetheless. "Uh... do you... know who I am? Who… we are?" Steven asks her. She stares at us for a second before chuckling with closed eyes.

"All you wanna do, is see me turn into-" She begins singing.

Steven gasps at what she means. "A giant woman!" he finishes her sentence, indicating she does remember us because that's what Steven was singing earlier about Pearl and Amethyst fusing. She nods at him before looking to me.

"Are you alright?" she asks me.

I look down at myself to see long rivers of blood already reaching my shoes. My sides are pretty cut up from the birds beak but other than that, I'm good. I open my mouth to answer her but my eyes widen as I push her behind me and spray the air with bullets behind her with my machine pistol. The two of them look to see that I just destroyed a small flock of the birds that were able to survive Opal's arrow. I let my gun fall to my side and give them a tired smile.

*Clang*

I got to open my mouth to say something but a loud sounds interrupts me. I look to the right of my feet to find my pickaxe embedded in the ground. "Oh." I say and grab my pickaxe, wiggling it around a little to pull it free. Once it's out, I strap it to my back and looks towards the others again. "I'm good. For now at least." I say and gesture for us to get moving. "C'mon, let's go home. I've had enough of birds for one day thank you very much."

The two of them agree with me and we make our journey home.

* * *

Garnet is drying her hair as we appear back home.

"We're back!" Steven yells happily with arms spread as Opal stands behind us in a pose.

"The Heaven beetle." Garnet states us.

Opal gasps, remembering the mission. "I don't have it." The sudden revelation is enough to screw with the gems making Opal as her form glows and disappears, sending Pearl and Amethyst away from each other.

"Amethyst, _you_ got distracted!" Pearl immediately accuses the purple gem.

"Hey, _you_ were the one getting carried away with all those fancy backflips!" Amethyst retaliates.

"Guys!" I yell, catching all their attentions. I pull the beetle out of my jacket. "I gotcha covered."

"Well done, Marcus." Garnet says. She walks up to me with a small plastic clear container that has another beetle in it. She opens the top for me to place the Heaven beetle inside, which I do. The little guy rights myself up before Garnet closes the lid and bubble them. "I also see you helped your teammates fuse." Looking back to Amethyst and Pearl, they look at each other in surprise about the situation.

"And all we had to do was have Marcus get eaten by a bird." Steven says with a surprising amount of joy.

"If that's the prerequisite for helping you guys fuse, no thank you." I grumble and walk over to the couch.

"Nice work, you two will be great at fusing one day." Garnet says as she walks off. _'Sure, sure, we can fus- Wait! We can fuse!'_ I think with a bit of surprise.

"Yeah... Wait! We can do that too?!" Steven voices my thoughts similarly to my surprise.

"Ugh. I'm not in the mood for anymore fusion." I say out loud. I look towards Pearl, "Pearl, can you get the first aid kit? I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need stitches."

"Very well." She says and grabs the kit from a kitchen cabinet. I pull off my shirt as she grabs a thread and needle. "You know, this does mean you're not going anywhere for awhile right?"

As Pearl points out, I can't help but let out a sigh, "*Sigh* I know." I say sadly as she makes the first push.

 **Still surprised at how long these keep turning out to be but still not deterred. Sorry for the slight delay between this chapter and the last on but college has started for me so I'll need to be focusing most of attention on my classes. However I do have a few hours between classes so that's free time I can use to write. In any case, another episode shift and I'll see you guys next time.**

 **Hopefully either sooner, or as much time as this one at least.**


	8. Authors Note 1

**This is to answer many questions given to me by coldblue and since he was a guest, I couldn't reply to him but I also realized that many of his questions stemmed from the same question other people have asked me. So to kill two birds with one stone, I decided to make this author note chapter to basically answer those questions and hopefully answer some you guys are thinking or have said. Also don't think I'm going to leave you guys hanging, chances are after you guys read this, the next chapter will be uploaded. This is basically a summarized version of the questions so bear with me:**

 **Will Marcus bubble gems?** **Read and find out**

 **Can he fuse?** **Honestly it never occurred to me at first but if you guys got some names and fuse pairings ideas, PM or say in review and maybe I can come up with something.**

 **Chances of Marcus hanging out with other teenagers?** **Possibly so in other episodes but not on a daily basis type thing. He's always been the lone wolf type of person and being a vigilante for a long time and moving around a lot, taking on corrupted gem monsters, that usually doesn't leave a lot for one to socialize, you know. He's better at socializing with the Crystal Gems because he can relate to them a little more, especially Steven, so teenagers he have to take more time to warm up to.**

 **Pairings for Marcus?** **Yes, I have one in mind so either look for hints, signs or what have you of it happening. Also if you guys want others to be paired up… sorry but chances of that happening are kinda low, and I don't mean with Marcus. Pairings like Pearl/Amethyst, Lapis/Peridot, stuff like that. I just want to leave those possible pairings to the show itself.**

 **Will Marcus be able to use Gem weaponry (Ex. The gem destabilizer, device used on Garnet by Jasper when they first met.)?** **Didn't think about it at first but now that the thought is in my head I just might. Not sure what equipment exactly or what situations to use them in but hopefully I come up with something soon.**

 **(More my own question of a suggestion someone made very earlier in the story) Why the Jade gem?** **Well before I started this story, I looked at the first two pages of some of the most favorited OC-included stories for Steven Universe and I found the most popular commonly used ones were things like Topaz and Onyx especially. I like the color black but I didn't want to overuse the gem basically so instantly thought of Jade. Also I looked at the characteristics and significance of the Jade gem and I kinda liked it so I went with it. I also didn't find a story where I saw a Jade gem used so I took the opportunity. If there are some stories using the Jade gem, guess I missed them, sorry.**

 **Well, that's about it. Hopefully that answered some of the questions you guys might have had. Pretty sure I didn't get them all but hopefully some that you guys won't be scratching your heads about.**

 **Thanks for the feedback people. I really appreciate it that you chose my story to read, fav, follow, and comment on you know. Hopefully I live up to your expectations. Thanks everyone.**


	9. 8 Steven the Sword Fighter

**Steven the Sword Fighter, and Marcus the Brawler**

I get nearly killed by some arrows in a freaky maze place, and I get placed out of commission for days. I finally get to go out again and what happens? I nearly get bitten in half by a giant bird.

Maybe it was karma for screwing with those birds when I was dealing with Frybo.

Ahh, doesn't matter now really. In any case, I was lying about all day for about a week and as always I missed some stuff.

Steven found out that the Gems have been alive for thousands of years, and because of that they don't feel the need to celebrate birthdays like regular humans do. He decided to throw a major party of sorts to try and celebrate all of the gems previously missed birthdays. They didn't really take to the birthday situations so Steven got all moody and sad about the idea that they didn't care for their birthdays and he somehow unlocked the ability to advance or lessen his age at will. In the end, the gems did celebrate their birthdays to appease Steven, which it did as he went back to his normal self… kind of. There was a bit of an issue with his legs or something like that but we were able to fix that.

They also brought me cake, which was nice.

Next, Steven started hanging out with that Lars guy, still don't like him and I told Steven to be very careful, I'm a teenager too so I may not have lived the social standing of school or being social but I have an idea of how we act, for whatever reason and even met up with the 'cool kids' of town. They decided to go to a restricted area that the gems cordoned off as hazardous; something about someone planting moss or whatever. When the gems told me they used police tape only after they put it down, you can only tell just how annoyed I was. After I finished explaining to them the significance police tape is to teenagers, it was then that Steven came back and told us what happened at the pond area. Obviously the gems were more than a little concerned about the whole thing but after they checked out the pond and the area where Steven took them, they were accepting of what happened. It also explained the massive shower of flowers that fell down near the window when I was _still_ staying in Steven's bed.

Finally, Steven apparently had a crisis going on with some type of toy collection he wanted to finish and that freaky kid Onion I think his name was called had the final one that Steven wanted. In the end, somehow he got it in his head that trading a wand that replicates things for one 'Ranger guy' was a good idea. I was going to ask him why didn't he just replicate ranger guy but apparently Pearl already told him that. Once the gems were all able to stop Onion from going on some kind of rampage by copying so many of the toys and even a car or two, things were forgiven and Garnet was about destroy the replicator.

Keyword: Was.

* * *

 _*Flashback*_

" _Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! What are you doing?" I quickly stop her. She looks at me impassively._

" _I'm going to destroy it because it's too dangerous to have around." She answers._

" _Wait, you don't have to. You can give it to me!" I try to offer an alternative. "C'mon, you know how I am. You know I'm not dense enough to let just anyone use this or take that thing right? I know of a good use for that thing."_

" _You're not going to copy money." She neutrally says._

 _I give her a mock gasp, "You think me so shallow?!" I ask in surprise. When she doesn't say anything, just staring at me under that intimidating gaze, I crack. "Alright the idea has crosses my mind but that's not what I was going to use it for." I quickly shut down the idea._

" _Then what are you going to use it for?" she asks._

 _I give her a nervous smile._

 _*End Flashback*_

* * *

Needless to say, I no longer have to worry about my ammo situation whatsoever. _'Good thing too, I was starting to run out of 5.56mm and the fight with the bird put a small dent in my 9mm supply as well.'_ However, I also made explicitly sure that the replicator was to be kept under strict lock and key. So I grabbed one of my spare cases, placed it in, code locked it, padlocked it, chained locked it and took out a floor board from inside Steven's house to hide it in before putting it back in place.

Still, while even though I missed a few things, I'm not going to sulk over it. There would be no point and now I'm going to focus on what it is I'm doing right now.

Watching some sort of samurai movie called _Lonely Blade IV._ It's raining outside so we all are inside watching said movie while eating popcorn as it pours. Well, Steven and Amethyst are eating popcorn. The gems don't eat, except for Amethyst who just loves to just eat for some reason, and I don't have a preference for popcorn.

"Damn that's a badass broom." I comment as the janitor, who is apparently the antagonist, pulls his broom handles apart to reveal a blade was inside.

"A clever way to hide ones weapons I'll admit." Pearl comments. "But other than that, this is ridiculous. Just look at their form, this is nothing like _real_ sword fighting." Being a sword fighter herself, Pearl no doubt has some idea as to what it means to be a real sword fighter. I am only self taught so I don't know every little detail when it comes to sword fighting. Plus I've never really gone up against any legitimate sword fighters so I've never tested myself either.

"It's just a movie Pearl." Steven points out as he lays atop Garnet's hair and stuffs more popcorn in his mouth.

"He's right." I say looking to her. "When it comes to most movies and video entertainments, they focus more on the… 'wow' factor and bright flashiness in order to hook people into it. Most of the time they'll forget the exact details in movies just so people can be amazed by how cool it looks." I explain.

"Well, if you ever want to see a demonstration of proper sword techniques, I'd be happy to show you." Pearl offers. _'Hm, come to think about it, I've never actually seen Pearl use a sword. Her skills with spear are all I've seen so far. If she really is an expert in sword fighting, maybe she can finally give me a few pointers at least._ ' I turn my head to ask her but Steven has the same idea as I see he puts his hand on Pearl's head, staring very excitedly at her with stars in his eyes. "Now?"

"Couldn't hurt?" I say, getting the others attention. "I mean, I use swords as well and you can do this for two reasons, to satisfy this guy's curiosity," I pat Steven's head in emphasis, making him smile. "And to finally give me some lessons in swordsmanship you promised awhile back." I finish with a smile. Everyones head turns back to Pearl, waiting for her answer.

"Hm," she smiles, "Very well."

* * *

I don't know where we are and I have no idea if we are even on earth anymore because this place is awesome. A floating arena like setting with half of it broken off, tiled floors, marble obelisks surrounding the area and most of all we are so high up that clouds can pass right in front of us. Amethyst is lying on one right now! Most interesting of all is that even though we are so high up, the air doesn't even feel thin at all. I breathe regularly and I have no idea if it's because of my gem physiology, this place is in another world, magic or some type of rigged device shielding this place from the high thin air. Either way, it's cool. Pearl says she uses this place at times to train so as not to arouse suspicion from anyone on earth. We sit on the bottom row of the stone stairs as Pearl stands in the middle of the arena with two swords. Not like my katana's, just two straight swords with handle guards covering the entire hand.

"Alright, in order to give a proper demonstration I'm going to need a sparring partner." Pearl asks us. Steven goes to raise his hand but Garnet immediately pulls it down. I want to raise my hand but I'm not stupid or cocky enough to. Pearl has had centuries of experience while I've only had a few years, even if it was ingrained in me by my mother's side. Plus it would probably be better for me if I 'saw' the sword fighting happen first before trying it right off the bat. That's how someone gets hurt and frankly I've been hurt quite enough this last month alone. "Luckily, I have the perfect candidate." Pear answers and soon her gem starts to glow. She does a couple moves and ends with an almost exact copy of her opposite from where she stands, a beam of hologram light emanating from the clone to her gem.

"Cooool, hologram Pearl!" Steven comments.

"Wow, that is pretty cool." I agree. It definitely gives one the chance to truly better themselves than by taking on yourself.

"Aw, geez." However Amethyst doesn't share in mine and Stevens enthusiasm.

Pearl cuts the stream of energy between her and the hologram with one swipe of her sword. The hologram stands up straight of its own accord, no longer hindered by copying exactly' Pearl's movements. "Do you wish to engage in combat?" It asks Pearl.

"Let this be the perfect battle." Pearl states as she tosses one of her swords towards the holo-pearl.

It immediately catches it, "You've already made a mistake by challenging me!" he hologram confidently says as the construct gets into a fighting pose.

"Hahaha, We shall let our swords decide." Pearl laughs as she prepares as well.

"Nerd!" Amethyst yells to the both of the Pearls.

"Egegegeg, Intellectual." I interrupt her before she can say anything else. Steven and Garnet however shush us.

"Commencing dual!" The holo-pearls eyes redden and immediately takes the offensive. Keeping a careful eye on the battle, the fight and the way their swords hit each other, as well as how they move kinda reminds me of fencing a little but it doesn't look like it completely but only just. Soon, after several more strikes and blocks on the hologram and Pearls part, the hologram lets up on the attacks to give Pearl and evaluation. "Defense rank: S. Zero openings detected." It states loudly.

"Go, Pearl, go!" Steven cheers loudly.

"Keep it up, Pearl." I add my own voice to the mix.

"Go Holo Pearl!" Amethyst cheers instead for the construct, making me give her a glare, which she shrugs.

"Opening detected!" Turning back to the fight, to my surprise I see that Pearl had lost her sword, the hologram standing between her and her sword. It tries to take advantage of her unarmed status to land a hit but Pearl dodges the strike by sliding underneath the strike on her knees and grabbing her sword. With the weapon back in hand, Pearl proceeds to take the initiative now, sending more and more attacks to her copy before she lands a debilitating hit and lands a solid strike on the training dummy, sending her flying away from her and rolling along the ground. "Match set. Challenger wins." It declares from the floor.

"Woohoo! Yay, Pearl!" Steven says excitedly and runs over to Pearl.

"Man, Pearl. That was beautifully down." I comment as I make my way over as well.

"Pearl! That was amazing, you were so cool!" Steven continues his praise as he circles around the gem sword fighter in his excitement.

"Oh-hoho, well, one does try their best." Pearl says while blushing at our compliments.

Because of his excitement, Steven starts making sword noises in the air. "Will you teach me to sword fight like you?!"

"Us. He means teach 'us' to sword fight." I say while tapping his head.

Pearl gives off a slight laugh at our insistence on teaching us. "Alright, but we should start with the basics." She says and turns her attention to the hologram. She clears her throat, "Initiate training mode."

"Training mode initiated. Level 1, begin!" The hologram declares as it gets back up to its feet and gets into its stance.

"Stand back, and watch me carefully you two, okay?" she asks of us. We comply as we step away from her, allowing her to get into her fighting stance again.

The hologram begins the training mode as it does some simple basic attacks against Pearl. "Parry! Parry! Thrust!" the hologram yells as it continues its moves, yelling the words over and over again with each repeated attack.

"Do you see what I'm doing with my feet you two? Notice where I keep my center of gravity." I don't know about Steven but I hang on every word she says. Looking towards her feet, I see what she means by centering her gravity because with the way how her feet are split and away from each other, this allows her multiple points to ground herself to where she is so she can move quickly if need be, or to push back against her opponent as the stance can also prevent her from being thrown back quite easily. I already got that part because I use a similar stance when it comes to using my firearms.

"Aw, can you show me something cool? Like the Boomerang Blade!" However Steven doesn't share my enthusiasm as he only cares for the 'coolness' of sword fighting.

"Steven, you know that's not a real technique." I can't help but agree with Pearls statement as she continues to parry the easy attacks of the hologram as it continues to yell its moves.

"Boomerang blade! Boomerang blade! Boomerang blade!" Steven chants the move over and over again.

"Steven hush." I like Steven and all but I also wish he knew how important this is, especially for me. I couldn't help but shush the kid so I can listen instead of her getting interrupted.

"Steven, these are _real_ sword techniques. Not those silly things from your movies. It's about waiting carefully for the perfect moment to stri-"

"Pearl look out!"

"Thrust!"

Everything seems to freeze for me as I was too late to save her. Her and my eyes widen as we stare at the blade protruding out of her stomach.

The 'clang' her sword makes as it falls to the ground deafens my ears, echoing in my hearing over and over again like a curse.

"... Pearl?" I barely hear Stevens strained voice over the deafness I clouding me.

"W-whoopsie-daisy! Steven, it's okay. I'm gonna be just f-" With what little life she has left, Pearl tries to reassure us for whatever reason and poofs into dust.

Multiple images of the monsters I've fought before I found the Crystal gems flash through my eyes, all the dust clouds that appeared as I incapacitated over a dozen monsters since I was alone.

All the lives I took as I crushed their gems with my bare hands.

"Challenger defeated. Level 1 failed." My fists start to whiten from the tightness I grip them in as I stare at the construct that destroyed Pearl, one of my friends. "Do you wish to engage in combat?" I gladly oblige by punching the thing right in its face. It takes a few steps back from the force of my punch before straightening back up. "Challenge accepted. Basic attack mode, initiated: Parry, parry, thrust!" My face remains impassive as I move my head from side to side from its attacks before as it goes to strike; I dodge and deliver a right hook to its face again. "Basic attack mode defeated. Now initiating advanced mode." It declares as its eyes turn back to red.

"Bring it on you bastard." I mutter under my breath angrily as I materialize my Katana's. I think I hear other voices around me but I pay them no mind as the hologram attacks me with a thrust.

Dodging to the right, I bring my right sword up to redirect its attack as I bring my left sword in a wide arc towards its stomach. The hologram dodges the attack by jumping back and moving into the Ko Gasumi No Kamae sword stance and slides right towards me. Using both my swords I push the blade to my left and I try to bring it towards it but its sword is much faster, slicing through my shirt and cutting the skin. I take a step back and place a hand on my wound.

"Challenger defeated. Continue?" Not wasting a moment, I attack again and both our swords lock together. "Challenge accepted!" it pushes me, forcing me to slide back as it presses the attack.

I bring one sword up at a time to deflect its attacks as it continues to hit me over and over again. We dance like this for a little bit before after one deflection with my right sword, it rolls along my body and slides its sword against my back, cutting me again. I fall onto my knee as I breathe deeply in anger.

"Challenger defeated. Con-?" I don't let it finish as I immediately turn around and lunge at it again. "Challenge accepted!" it yells as I continue to slash at it, forcing itself to walk back as it deflects my attacks.

"Shut up and die already!" I yell through gritted teeth and hit harder. I slash from above, below, the sides in alternating attempts with both my swords to keep it from reading my attacks. Our blades lock once more and we glare at each other for a second before we push each other off. We sprint at each other again and it goes for an overhead strike. I bring both my swords to my right and with first the left then the right, I bash it's sword to keep it in the air as I go for a kick to stun it. My plan works as its form flickers for a second. _'Now.'_ I sprint forward to try and destroy the hologram before it can recover but I wasn't fast enough. It's brings it's sword forward just as we both strike.

Our faces meet an inch from each other as we stare into each other's eyes, it's bright red eyes and my anger infused blue eyes. A small cut forms along the left side of my face as my swords are buried in the holograms stomach. A few tense seconds pass before I plant my foot on its chest and push back as hard as I can, ripping my swords from its form as it rolls back away from me. When it comes to a stop, it stands back up. "Challenger wins. Do you wish to duel again?" It says while back in its stand-by mode.

Before I can oblige it again, a hand on my shoulder suddenly stops me from going. I turn back in anger at who dares interrupt me to see Garnet. "She's not gone."

"… What?" I ask her about her blunt statement in both intense anger and slight confusion.

"We aren't like the creatures you've fought before. Gems like us do come back as well when our forms take too much damage. As long as her gem is safe and unharmed, Pearl will come back." She answers. She turns to show me Amethyst next to Steven as he carries Pearls gem with a slight bit of reassurance on his face. My face doesn't change in the slightest as I look back towards the hologram. After staring at it, I move my peripheral towards Garnet.

"How long?"

* * *

Two weeks.

Two god damn fucking weeks it's been and still no change whatsoever has occurred with Pearl. Her gem just sits there with nothing to indicate if whether or not she is fine or not and its absolutely killing me.

The first week, the reassurance Garnet and Amethyst gave me about Pearl helped a little and waited with Steven for Pearl to come back. However by the halfway point of week two, the waiting took its toll and I got really depressed. I haven't slept in days and I've barely eaten a thing. I look like a mess and Steven's place is no picture of beauty either. My wounds from the fight already healed but I didn't particularly care for them, nor did I for my clothes that I sewed up. While I remained alone, quiet and distant from the others, Steven tried to compensate by using that damned holographic version of her to act like she's still here. I can't even look at that thing without my blood boiling and flashes of its sword piercing Pearl going off in my memories over and over again.

In, the things constant thirst for battle, as well as it somehow chopping a tree down with a balloon sword, has waned on Steven as well, finally accepting that the training dummy is not her and never will be her. He still talks to her gem in hopes that will fix things but I can't.

I don't want a replacement. I want Pearl back. I want my friend back.

"Marcus?" I turn my attention away from staring out the window into the rain to acknowledge Steven. He's holding Pearls gem in one hand while holding the box for another movie in the other and holding popcorn with his arm against his chest. "Pearl and I were going to watch the fifth movie of _Lonely Blade._ Do you… uh… wanna join us?" he asks me.

I stare at the items he's holding for a long awhile until I place my hand on his shoulder. "Thanks," I give him a weak smile and stand up. "But no thanks. I'm gonna go for a walk."

"But it's raining." He tells me as I grab the handle on the door. A bright flash of lightning and heavy drops of water emphasizes that statement.

I sigh, "I know. I prefer the rain." I say and open the door. Immediately I'm bombarded with water as I step outside. I turn around to close the door when a flash of lightning reveals the hologram in front of me.

"Do you wish to test your skills against me in a duel?" It speaks again.

' _I do. I really do. I want to tear you apart limb from limb.'_ I angrily think as my grip and face start to exhibit anger.

But it peters off into tired expressions.

"You're not her. You'll never be her." I say in a depressing tone. With that, I close the door and walk down the stairs, petting lion a little on the way down as I walk wherever my feet take me.

My journey takes me along the boardwalk as people begin to close up their shops and put away anything that could be blown away by the storm or destroyed by the rain. I walk past them all with my hands in my pockets as my jacket billows in the wind. Before long, my walking takes me to the beach far into the middle between the temple and the docks. With how my life has been, I've always felt more at home in the rain. The darkness of the clouds and how they make the landscape looks cool to me, the pitter patter of the rain eases my mind and just the overall atmosphere makes me relate to it on an almost daily basis. For the time I've been staying with the Crystal Gems, I haven't been feeling as depressed as I was when I was along… at least until recently.

Thunder strikes light up the night sky as my failure flashes through my mind again.

The stab.

The disappearance.

My almost slow step in comparison.

I swore I would protect her. I swore I would protect my friends.

"Raaaaaaah!" I yell to the heavens. The thunder strikes in almost perfect unison to my outburst. My breath deepens as my fists tighten. _'All of them! I swore I would protect ALL of my friends! I've lost too many in the past! Watched too many innocents die! Too many get hurt for no reason!'_

"RAAAAAAAH!" I yell louder; more thunder appears.

' _I meet new people and I fail one of them again! She's not dead but if she were human, she would be!'_

"RAAAAAH!" I yell and punch the ground.

' _I was too comfortable. I was too slow to stop her from getting hurt. To a fucking training doll!'_

"I'm so! Fucking! USELEEEEEESSSS!" I scream over the loud booming thunder and lightning strikes.

*REEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHH*

I pause. The new sound makes me turn to the water. Standing there is a 7ft tall bipedal creature as black as the night with gray smoke billowing off it. It's head is round but the most discernible features is the legs, where its knees are bent backwards, the arms, where they remind me a bit of slender mans except they are more muscled with long protruding red claws as its fingers, and its face, where it's the stuff of nightmares; glowing white eyes with 4-inch long razor sharp teeth overlapping each other and no lips to cover them.

We stare at each other for a long while before it slowly raises its right arm and points to me and lets out a low hiss I can hear even through the water crashing and the thunder strikes. Slowly, more creatures emerge from the shore around it, smaller versions of it but still just as deadly looking. They shamble their way out of the water and start to surround me 3 deep with no space between them. My eyes roam around as I take into account of just how many of them there are and how outnumbered I am.

I look towards the water again to see the first creature staring at me again. It just stands there, judging me.

My swords materialize in my hands, making them all take a step back except for the leader.

' _They want a fight. I'll give them one.'_ I twist my right sword around until I am holding it in the reverse grip. _'No more feeling useless. No more feeling… weak.'_

Very slowly and carefully, I bring myself low to the ground, my left foot in front with it pointed 45 degrees to the right, my right left behind me pointing away from me, my right sword in the air behind me and my left sword closer to the ground.

' _My mother died to give me life. I won't let her sacrifice be in vain.'_

"Let's go." I quietly say. Despite the quietness I utter those words, one of them from in front of me charges. It gives off a large screech like the one I heard before and moves to stab me with its claws. I stay where I am, waiting for the perfect moment.

* * *

" _Its about waiting for the perfect moment to stri-"_

 _*Poomf*_

* * *

' _I won't fail you Pearl.'_

It brings its right arm forward to stab me. In a flash of lightning, I pirouette in the right direction on my back right foot, letting its attack move past me before I move to face forward again standing tall this time, except now my right katana is buried in the things head. It's arms fall limply to its sides and the knees give out, the body only being supported by sword, which in one swift pull is taken out of the body, letting it fall to the ground and explode into dust, leaving nothing, not even a gem. _'Soldiers, or workers, the leader has the gem.'_

*REEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHH*

It screeches again and points at me again. More of the ones surrounding me begin to converge on me, signaling his need for my end.

I block a swipe from one in front of me with my left sword before tearing its head off with my right. I continue that momentum around me where I block with my right, allowing me to stab it in the chest and pull it out to the right. The two bodies disappear, blocking my view from others. I use that to my advantage and duck, allowing two more who tried to stab me by stabbing themselves instead. I slice both their heads off and move away from them. I flip my right sword back into its forward grip and cross both of them to stop two stabs from one more creature. My strength wins out as I force it to its knees and cross my swords in a scissor formation along its neck and close them, ending its life like all its other friends.

Three more rush me from the same direction. I run towards them as well and before we come to blows, I tumble roll under them, slicing the legs off of two of them as I move past them. They explode in a dust cloud, confusing the third before I throw my left katana into the cloud. A squeal of pain accompanies after as more of the cloud increases. I quickly bring my right sword up with a two-handed grip to my left to block another attack. Leaning to the left, I allow another one to stab the one I was blocking accidentally, allowing me to slice them both to death. A 'woosh' of air makes me look up to see one jumped high into the air to try and hit me from above. I roll onto my back and bring both my legs up, executing a double kick right to the things stomach, sending it back into the air and landing it right onto my other sword that was pointing, handle up, in the sand. Its body is severely torn from going in handle first on my blade but disappears just the same. I roll over to my sword and grab it. Bringing it up, I bisect another one with both my swords.

"Ah!" I yelp in pain as something cuts my back, slightly reopening the wound from earlier. Quickly turning around, I slice the one that cut me in half with one swipe. I deflect another's attack with my right and end it with my left.

"Rrr!" Another takes advantage and lands a hit on me. Taking that one out, I find the circle is slowly closing in as I continue to cut down more and more of them. This also means that more and more of them attack me at once.

The cycle continues. As I attack and kill one, another takes the chance to land a minor blow on me. They aren't fatal but they cause me to momentarily stop. It happens again and again, I slay more of them but my body starts to weaken.

Finally, I push back.

When they are a couple feet from me, in defiance, I slam my fists hard into the ground. To my surprise, an area-of-effect attack happens around me, sending a concussive blast away from me, sending my attackers far away from me. Standing back up, two in front of me only slid back because they blocked the majority of the blast with their arms. Annoyed at their move, I rear back and chuck both my swords at them, killing them. Now unarmed, the last dozen or so get back on their feet and rush me, thinking I'm an easy target now.

They were wrong.

I reach into my jacket and pull out both my Beretta's and put a round each into the heads of two more of them in front of me. I then turn my arms to my sides and fire two more rounds, killing another two on opposite sides of me. Now, the fighting has become a dance as I dodge an attack and retaliate with bullets up close and personal, ending them with one bullet each because of how close I am to them. I lean back as one's claws glide over me. I lean back up and place a shot to the back of its head. Twirling my body around, I send four more shots into them as more try to attack. I duck under one's attack and I pistol whip it, stunning it enough for me to aim behind me with my left gun and unload on the ones behind me.

*Click*

As soon as the hammer hits and nothing fires, I drop the gun on the spot and grab the stunned ones throat with my now free hand. Before it can attack, I fire four rounds directly into its stomach and follow-up with a Spartan kick, sending it back against its final friend. Before the pushed one disappears, I fire and kill the one it landed on with one shot to the head.

By this point, the rain has let up and all my targets are down… except for one.

Looking towards the water, the leader still stands, albeit a bit more rigidly. I aim directly at it. It doesn't move one bit, not even with the water at its heels. Slowly I aim towards the ground in front of me and fire.

*BANG! Click*

Wasting the last bullet I had, I drop my gun behind me, right next to its brother. Walking over to my swords lying on the ground, I grab them and twirl them a couple times before stabbing them into the ground next to my guns. I take off my jacket and lay it on my swords. I turn back from my weapons and stop in the middle of where I dueled against its subordinates and stand there stoically. It takes me up on my challenge as it slowly trudges its way out of the water and to me. Each step it takes gives off a menacing aura of power before it comes to a stop right in front of me. The difference in size between us is obvious but that doesn't stop me from taking up a boxer's stance, right fist to the right under my chin and with the left in front of me. The creature gives off a low hiss in return. Rain lightly falls on us as we wait for one of us to make a move. Just one thing to happen to send us fighting.

A lightning bolt strikes, sparking the fire of our battle.

It moves forward and attempts to take off my head but I juke to the right and send a couple punches to its side. It isn't deterred in the least as it brings its other arm to try and hit me. I lean back and respond with more punches around its body's. We trade attacks like this over and over again for a few times with much of the same result, no hits from it and a few from me. When it tries to slice my head off again, I duck under its attack and attempt to spin kick its legs out from under it. I am only rewarded with a solid smack as it continues to remain standing. Instead of with its hands, it jerks its leg out from under it and nails me hard in the face, sending stars into my vision and sending me a few feet away from it. I roll on the ground a few feet away from it before coming to stop. Getting onto my hands and knees, I work to try and regain my vision from the near concussion it gave me. As I do, my senses flare up and instinctively I roll to the side, the things claw driven deep into the muddy-like sand right where I was at. Not wasting the opportunity, I bring my right leg back and deliver a solid kick against the things arm in the wrong direction. A sickening crack accompanies my attack as the things arm is jerked out of the sand but is now broke and bending the wrong way. It rears back and screeches loudly as I roll away from it and onto my feet, this time moving into a Muay Thai combat stance since my fists didn't do as much damage. The creature looks at me with pure anger radiating off it as it attacks with its remaining arm. Ducking and dodging to the right, I bring my right leg up and hit against the creatures side, staggering it. Taking the initiative, I move closer and deliver a strike to its stomach before following up with a solid elbow strike to its chest, forcing it to slide back a little. Moving closer, I hit it again with foot and leg strikes against its sides and chest region, taking as many chances as I have in delivering as much damage as I can to it before it can retaliate.

Unfortunately I bite off more than I can chew as it wise's up and swings it's broken arm at me, my foot strike tangling up in the limp limb and negating my move as it follows up with a slash from its good arm. Thinking quickly, I lean back and do several back flips along the ground to put some distance away between the two of us. As I come for a landing, I stagger and fall to my hand and knee, breathing heavily as I take stock up what's happened. My body is riddled with small cuts from my first battle, I am tired from the few days I've stayed up not sleeping and eating along with the first fight, and I look to my chest to see three very long cuts on it, my shirt effectively ruined but the skin was barely nicked, blood not even seeping through.

' _I can't keep this up forever. I need to end this soon.'_ I get back up and move forward, getting back into my stance. _'I need to end this… now.'_ Determination lining my face, I move forward and start feigning attacks. The creatures movements are jerky and uncoordinated to my numerous potential strikes before it signs its end. It thrusts its arm forward, giving me my opening. Allowing the tip of the claw to lightly cut my cheek, I reach my right arm over its body along the back and place the back of my left arm against its stomach. Bringing my right leg back, I kick and force its legs out from under it, allowing me to push with my arms and force it to fall on its face. Quickly taking the chance, I place one foot behind its head, forcing it into the wet sand and then I grab both legs with both my arms. Bringing the legs up, I pull… hard.

I can feel the creatures structure pull taught as I effectively try to either tear off its lower limbs or crush its head, whatever happens first. Its remaining good arms flails around to try to hit me but can't find its target. As I pull and pull with what little strength I have left, it finally grabs the ankle of my foot on its head.

But by then, it's too late. With a grunt of exertion, the legs give and a satisfying 'poomf' sounds as I fall onto the sand in a cloud of smoke.

I lay there for a few seconds to let the smoke billow away as the rain shifts to a gentler patter, taking deep but oh so succulent breaths of air, before I slowly sit up. They're lying on the ground, is a cut black gem in the shape of an onyx gem but with minor details different. Slowly I crawl over to the gem and gently pick it up with my right hand, the weight of it seems small but right now it weighs a million pounds.

"You… have… caused me… so much… grief." I breathe out as best I can. My heavy breathing turns to hoarse chuckling, "But damn… did you give me a fight… and the workout… I needed." I say. _'As well as a kick to the head… both figuratively and literally.'_ With a deep groan, I slowly get to my feet and walk over to my stuff. Dawning my jacket, guns and dissipating my swords, I look to the gem in my hand. "Now, I just have to find Garnet or Amethyst to bubble you." As I say that, I look around in hopes of finding them. However I stop before I look very to another piece of info I remember. "Wait, didn't Amethyst float up into the air after she ate her cloud?" I ask as I look up, wincing a little as more thunder booms. _'Hope you're not in the thunder clouds at least.'_ Feeling a migraine coming on at the AWOL of the gems, I stare intently at the gem. "Now who's going to bubble-"

*Woomp*

"… Oh… And apparently I can bubble gems now." I comment off-handedly. It's true. Where the black gem was, it now resides in a dark green bubble. "I should feel happy… but I'm not. I feel… tired." I say tiredly. Right now I should feel ecstatic that I learned some new powers, the bubbling and my earthquake-like attack from earlier, but instead I just want to sleep for a week. But first, "Now how do I- Ah!" Remembering how the gems send their captures to the temple, I take a shot at it and tap the top with my other hand. The bubble jerks up slightly before it disappears.

I may not be happy right now at the new powers I got, a huge weight is lifted off me as I no longer have to destroy gems if I'm ever in a situation where I can't get to the gems to bubble them. It sucks that I only got it now instead of before I met the gems but it's no use crying over the past now. I can only help the ones in the future now. "Alright, now that that's done, I'm gonna go sleep." I say to myself and start walking back to the temple.

* * *

"Whoa."

"Yep."

Amethyst and Garnet say from their perch on the sign of 'Fish Stew Pizza'. Garnet is sitting on it while she holds onto a string attached to Amethyst's foot, preventing her flying away like last time. The two gems saw the whole fight take place, wanting to cut in and help a few times but were left in slight awe, some more than others, at how Marcus quickly turned things around, as well as discovering some things about himself in the process. All in all, if the gems weren't impressed with his skills before, they are now.

"C'mon. Let's go before you get hit by lightning and to make sure Marcus is alright." Garnet says as she jumps down, still carrying balloon Amethyst.

"Right behind you." She says happily.

Not like she has much of a choice in the matter, being a balloon and all.

* * *

Marcus continues to trudge is was through the wet sandy beach to the safe confines of the beach house he and the Crystal Gems live in.

' _Damn, gonna be hell to walk up those steps.'_ He thinks as he stops at the bottom of the stairs. Releasing a dejected sigh, he slowly makes his way up the stairs, he move feeling like a thousands are anchored to his legs. When he finally makes it to the top, he smiles tiredly as he pushes in the door.

"Marcus! Look who's back!" Steven happily yells while wearing his shirt around his head like a bandana. Marcus winces at the loud outburst of the enthusiastic kid.

"Steven, you can tell me all about it in a few days… when I wake up." Marcus replies in a slightly slumped form.

"But-"

"Later, please." He interrupts as he walks past him and Pearl. "Hey Pearl." Marcus greets the gem before heading straight for the couch.

"Hello… Marcus." She greets back but doesn't get an acknowledgment, only the form of Marcus collapsing on the couch face first.

"Huh. I was expecting a bit more." Steven comments with a hand on his chin.

"What happened while I was gone?" Pearl turn to Steven, hoping for answers.

"Well you see-"

"PEEEAAAARRRLLL!" Before Steven can finish, Marcus barrels into said gem and grabs her in bone-crushing hug.

"OH! Y-yes, Marcus. It's me. I'm here." She stutters a bit, more than a little confused at the situation. She expected the hug from Steven but is more than a little odd and confused at the much bigger show of affection by Marcus.

"Pearl! Oh my god! Is it you?! Is it really you?!" Marcus hysterically asks over and over again while gripping her face to give himself a very clear look at her.

"Y-yes Marcus! It is me! I'm back! I'm right here!" she tries to calm down the distressed human hybrid. With a smile and actual tears starting to form on the corners of his eyes, he hugs her again but gentler.

"I'm so glad your back. I thought… when I saw the sword… I…" he tries to form sentences but his mind is reeling around immensely with the amount of emotions he went through throughout the day.

"I'm alright Marcus. I'm not gone." She says. She soon feels moisture start to stain her new shirt behind her.

"Don't leave me. Please don't leave me." He says through tears.

Pearl places her hand behind the mans head and reassures him, "I won't Marcus. I promise I won't."

He brings his head back and Pearl is more than a little surprised at seeing the stone-faced emotion human so… vulnerable. "Good… good." He says and begins to lean forward to her face.

"Uhh, Marcus? What are you doing?" Pearl quickly asks as the human leans his head forward with closed eyes. He moves closer and closer to her face until…

*Thud*

Next thing Pearl knows, she's on the ground with a sleeping human on her stomach. Sitting up, she looks down at the peacefully sleeping man before finally taking stock of his body, more so his injuries. None of them look life threatening and nothing more than some bandages and a good few nights rest will he be better. She looks around to see a slightly confused Steven, a slightly grinning ballooned up Amethyst being held by a neutral faced Garnet.

"What happened while I was gone?" she asks the red gem. Garnet thinks back to what she heard and saw back at the beach before taking a long look at sleeping man.

"He doesn't take loss well." She answers.

Pearl looks down to the hybrid on her, gently stroking his head as she wonders just who Marcus was before he met them.

 **Damn, I am quite proud of this chapter. Longest one so far and probably the longest fight scenes I've ever made. It's been awhile since I did any fights as major as these ones so I wanted to go big. I hope you guys enjoyed this and gained at least some clarity, or questions, as to what Marcus is. Now he's got some powers but like Steven, he's got a long way to go. I almost pulled an all nighter writing this so I could stay up and prevent my brother from eating. He's got to get some teeth cleaned and a tooth pulled so the dentist stated that he is not to eat after midnight. Decided I didn't want my mom to stay up all night so I volunteered (Insistent slight begging and as many logic points I could come up with) to do it.**

 **It sucked but it was alright. Managed to finish this up at least but since I was tired, expect some errors here and there. And for those of you worried about my classes, don't worry. Not all the teachers instantly gave work on the first week of school and I don't have classes Thursday and Fridays so those are days I can potentially do assignments or relax. Relax came to mind. In any case, this felt good to write and I was definitely looking forward to this episode. This is why I like to skip some episodes, to get to these things quicker. So I can get shit like this donr and out for you all to read as well as me. I think with this I will change the rating to M to avoid any problems. With what I got planned in the future, there is the chance for that to happen but not guaranteed. As I've said before, I come up with the majority of this as I go along.**

 **Better safe than sorry. Anyway, have fun reading and living. Me?… Sleep sounds nice.**

 **I also made a RWBY reference in there somewhere; I hope you guys got it.**

 **Also if you hadn't noticed the title I made at the top of the chapter, it was too long to actually call it that so I stuck with the episode name and added mine at the beginning of the chapter. Might do that for future installments.**


	10. 9 Lion 2: The Movie

Things have definitely calmed down since Steven and I basically freaked out, in our own ways, at Pearls temporary passing. I managed to get a very long good night's rest and I ate properly. My wounds from my battles weren't anything serious, only flesh wounds that were easily fixed with small amounts of alcohol to prevent infection and bandages to cover them up. I did run a slight fever for a few days because I was out in the rain but nothing too serious. I was thankful for that at least. I probably would have lost my mind if I had to stay out of anymore missions or miss some interesting things that might have happened. Still a little peeved at myself for missing the mission where they got Lion, otherwise I wouldn't have freaked out so much when I woke up to him staring at me. Either way, I was happy to be able to go on a mission with the gems but I politely declined. After my battle with the hologram and the brawl with that monster and its subordinates, I realized that I've been slacking off on my skills. I've relied too much on my guns and I need to be better.

"78… 79… 80… 81…" Right now I am down on the beach in front of the temple doing some sit-ups on a flat peace of rock. I wasn't as fast as I would have liked when I fought the hologram and my melee attacks against the leader creature weren't as hard hitting. So for now on when I have some free time, I've going to be exercising. "97… 98… 99… 100." I collapse onto my back and take a few seconds to breathe. When I feel well again, I twist myself around and begin doing some push-ups. I don't know how exactly these exercises will do for me considering my physiology and all but hopefully my strength, cardio, and speed will be increased because of what I do. "12… 13… 14… 15…"

"Hey Marcus!" I stop and look up to see Steven, Connie and Lion staring at me. Steven is wearing his cheese-burger backpack, which is pretty cool by the way.

"Hey guys. Whatcha' need?" I ask while doing my push-ups again.

"What are you doing?" Connie asks me.

"Exercising."

"Why?" Steven asks.

"Because I want to get stronger."

"But you're already strong." Steven states.

Letting out a deep breath, I stop on my 30th push before sitting down. "True, I am strong. But I want to be stronger. I don't want to be over-cocky in my strength and abilities." I bring my hand up and look at it, "If I think I can take on someone or some kind of monster bigger than me, I _want_ my body to be able to back what my mouth says." I say as I clench my hand in a fist. The monster fight tired me out pretty quick, even though I was slightly food and sleep deprived but I want to be able to fight for hours if need be. Hopefully that won't happen but excuse me for being paranoid.

"Wow. That's actually a pretty great way of looking at things. And a good goal to keep you on your fitness plan." Connie commends me with a smile.

"Thanks Connie." I thank her and stand up, patting my pants a bit too clear away any sand. "So, I reiterate: Whatcha' need?"

"Oh, right. Well Connie and I were going to go see the new Dogcopter movie and we were wondering if you wanted to see it?" Steven answers and asks me. _'What… movie?'_

"Dog… copter?" I ask in a confused tone. _'Is it a literal dog… helicopter?'_

"Whaaaaaaat!?" Steven loudly exclaims, drawing out the 'what' as he places his hands on his head. "You haven't seen any of the Dogcopter movies?!"

"Uhhhh… no?" I say in a slight questionable manner, hopping I didn't offend him.

"Did you at least read the books?" Connie asks in a hopeful tone with clenched fists.

My blank expression is the only answer they need.

Also I do not like the way they are looking at each other like that. Almost like they are planning something.

* * *

I was right.

"Whoa… Whoa… whoa! You know, we could have taken my truck!" I yelp while holding tightly onto Lion's mane.

"Aw c'mon, Marcus! That's no fun. Besides, your acting like you've never ridden a lion before!" Steven says to me from behind, his arms wrapped around my waist.

"That's because I haven't Steven! I'm tech guy! I live in the modern times. I hack ATM's and criminal bank accounts so I don't go broke. I prefer four or two wheeled modes of transportation. Not on the backs of ferocious animals!" I yell behind me. Steven and Connie almost immediately dragged me onto Lion's back when they were done planning and with the two of them behind me to prevent me from escaping, I have no choice but to succumb to my punishment and hang on for dear life as we make our way through Beach City.

"Don't worry about it! Lion will take care of you. Won't you boy?" Steven asks Lion.

"Reargh." I hear the animal I am gripping onto growl out. I only squeeze harder.

"See!"

"My entire existence is reassured." I sarcastically say.

"Great." He doesn't get my sarcasm.

"Uhhh Steven? I think he was being-" Connie gets interrupted.

"Whoa!" We all yell out as Lion does a complete right angle left turn and heads straight for the water.

"Uh dude. Wrong way." I say to my ride but get no answer in return.

"Waaait, Lion! Don't go in the oceeeeeaaaaan!" Steven yells as both he and Connie scream as Lion jumps high into the air straight towards the deep part of the ocean. I close my eyes and embrace myself for the sudden rush of cold water.

"…"

But it never comes. Peeking one eye open, I look to see we are just above the water. Looking below, Lion is literally standing on the water. I look back to see Connie fix her glasses and Steven looks at Lion in surprise. "You can walk on water? Why don't you tell me you can do these things you dooooo?!" Before Steven can finish his question, Lion takes off along the water. At first, I'm still freaked out at the absurdity of how Lion is doing this but Steven's arms slacken and I look back to see that both he and Connie are looking around area in wonder. I admit it starts to look cool as well, especially when a couple of seagulls start to fly alongside us too. I almost reach out and touch one when they suddenly bank off and head elsewhere. Turning back to the front, I spot a boat coming up on us with a couple of sailors on board. They soon notice us and adopt shocked expressions on their faces. "Hey-o!" Steven greets them.

"'Sup!" I greet as well, causing the two passengers behind me to laugh. As we continue to move along the water, I notice a dark presence below us, causing me to look down and widen my eyes in awe. Two whales are swimming along with us and I can't help but be enraptured by the sheer presence of these majestic beats so close to us.

"Uh... are you sure he knows where he's going?" Connie's question snaps me out of the moment.

"Maybe its… a shortcut?" Steven replies but unsure of himself.

"He's got a funny way of a shortcut for us." I grumble out. While the animals are all cool to see and badass and all, I still don't like the idea of being stranded out here in the ocean so far away from land.

Soon after I say that, Lion roars, shaking us a little but also shooting some sort of pink-white portal in front of us.

"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry for giving you lip! Please continue on your shortcut! Oh man." I plead to the lion but he continues running towards it. I duck my head into his mane as the other two cling to me while screaming.

* * *

If Connie and Steven weren't with me, I could have sworn I was either having some sort of horrible fever dream or I took something not meant to be ingested.

The giant colorful tube hallway with a slipspace effect to it is the first indication that I think Lion is hyperdriving us.

"Has he ever done this?" Connie asks Steven. _'I'm wondering this too.'_

"No. This is new." Steven replies as the two of them hold onto me tightly, almost being pulled off by the sheer amount of air and force pushed against us, resulting in me holding very tightly onto Lion's mane and clenching tightly with my legs.

"Seriously?" I ask incredulously, "Teach him some things Steven. I don't like being caught off guard, especially by him." I indicate to Lion.

"Got it." Steven agrees. Soon the pressure begins to lessen on us and I hope the ending is coming soon.

* * *

We come out of the portal as quickly as we were moving inside it, causing Lion to slide along the shallow water.

"Whoa!"

*Splash*

And causing me to flip over his head and land in the water on my back. He moves forward a little to where we are looking directly into each other's eyes. "You did that on purpose didn't you?" I ask him.

His only response is a very wide mouthed yawn that emphasizes every single tooth he's got and makes me pale a little. He proceeds to sit down, sending the kids tumbling off him and landing in the water as well. "Whoa!" they yelp with a splash.

Slowly, I sit up and take a look around. We are in some sort of cave system with ankle high water. There is also some sort stone platform with stairs next to us. Curiosity getting the best of me, I stand up and look to the others. "You guys okay?" I ask.

Connie brushes some of her wet hair off her face and stands up with Steven. "That was really cool." She comments.

I smile at her optimism of the situation and start walking up the stairs. Lion follows behind me and growls to catch the others attention. So far the platform doesn't seem all that interesting, just a spiral circle in the middle of the already big circular platform and even when I stand in the middle of the place with Lion nothing happens. Suddenly the entire spiral part of the platform glows and shrinks to where I'm standing. I feel movement under me so I quickly jump out from where I'm standing to find a hand shaped pedestal rising out of the ground. Interestingly, there is a gem symbol in the middle of the hand surrounded my rose thorns that remind me a lot of Steven's gem. ' _Hm, could this be…'_ My mind trails off as Connie places Steven's hand on the pedestal while he's listing off the reasons to be at the movies now.

The pedestal glows as Steven's hand comes in contact with it and so does the rest of this place. "Hey, I think it likes you!" Connie says out loud. Looking around, I can't help but agree with her.

"Yeah, I think to does." _'The way how this place lights up when Steven interacts with it means it's connected to him. It didn't react when I stepped forward, only when he did, means it's not just affiliated with gem interaction, only a specific gem.'_ I look at Steven.

"Ah! AAAH! My hand's stuck! It won't come off!" He grunts as he tries to pull is hand free from the pedestal. _'And that gem is you, Steven.'_ Finishing my thoughts, Connie and I move to pull Steven off it.

"Hang on."

"We got you." Connie and I try to reassure him as we pull on his stuck arm. With grunts of exertion, we try to pull him off the pedestal but to no such luck. After stopping, I look closely to his hand to see that it doesn't look like any sort of adhesive or restraints are keeping him stuck. If I had to guess, just some sort of magic field keeping it there.

"Man, that's really stuck on good. I guess we'll have to chop it off." Connie proposes.

"What?!" Steven asks incredulously, clearly surprised at our idea.

"Marcus, Sword." Connie orders me.

"Gotcha." I reply and materialize my Katana.

"What?!" Steven asks again, now in more of fear at the blade in question.

"Ha. Relax man, we wouldn't do that to you." I say as I poof my sword away. "That was for dragging me with… you… guys." I slowly finish as I stare at rising pink pillar away from us. It suddenly rolls open to reveal many swords to us. "Holy…" I say as I make my way towards the weapons

"Hey swords!" Connie exclaims with enthusiasm, kinda like how I'm feeling right.

"Wooooow," I breathe in awe, examining the various weapons in this collection. "Man, different Katanas, some short swords, regular infantry swords, swords to cause intense bleeding, hold on… are those broadswords?" I ask myself. As I roam around, I gasp out loudly at another sword, "Is that a Zweihander!?"

"Nooooo!" Steven yells out loudly. Before I can touch them, the swords are sucked back into the pillar and underground.

"What?! No! No, no, no, no!" I grasp at the ground to somehow try to pull the weapons back out. "Steven!" I say and run over to the kid. "Steven man! I'm sorry for freaking you out but please bring those swords back out, please!" I almost beg him.

"Um, okay. Nnnnnngh. He grunts and tries to concentrate in pulling the weapons out again. However his effort is unsuccessful.

"Aw." I groan.

"Hmmm, here." Connie then pokes Steven in the shoulder.

"Ow! What are you- Hey! What are you doing?" Steven exclaims as Connie proceeds to poke, prod, pull and tickle the kid. "Hahahaha! Wait. Stop. Stop. I'm gonna pee!" Steven quickly stops her before he does what he says he's going to do.

Suddenly, several squares form around the platform and rise out of the ground, pulling many different types of armor out as well. The armor ranges from some that look like knights from the crusade era, samurai armor, and some armor that I've never seen before.

"Woah." I awe at the equipment pieces.

"Whoa, look at all this armor!" Connie says excitedly as well.

"Press my nose! Press my nose!" Steven asks of us.

"Boop." Connie obliges. Soon the armor pieces are pulled down into the ground and three pink cannon-like objects side by side are pulled out.

"Are those Laser Light Cannons?" Steven asks in slight surprise.

"Laser what?" I ask him.

"Next!" Before he can answer me, Connie grabs the corners of his mouth and pulls them apart. The cannons disappear and a row of axes appear.

"Axes!" They both exclaim loudly. _'Not really my cup of tea but alright._ Connie pokes Steven some more and the axes disappear as well, this time being replaced with a woman-like statue with it's arms extened out with spiked ball and chains attached to the arms, 6 to be exact.

"Spikey chain balls!" Steven and Connie yell out.

"Are those flails?" I ask to no one in particular. Next what rises out next is a giant…

"Penny?" Steven asks confused. He's right, a legitimate penny that stands even taller than me and perfectly on its thin edge is shown to us.

"Does that means it's worth more than a regular penny?" Connie asks with a hand to her chin.

"If it's made of legitimate copper, then most likely it is." First glance, I have no idea if it is copper or not but no way is it just worth one cent.

"Well, that would make 'cents'." Steven jokes with a very wide smile. This causes both he and Connie to laugh while I give a nervous chuckle. Lion just yawns and lies down on his side in an annoyed fashion. _'I feel ya buddy.'_

"This is so great, but..." Connie begins to say but her mood turns to one of being sad and worried. "I get the feeling, though, I'm not really supposed to be here."

"Ahhh, don't worry about it Connie." I say while patting her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be here either. I may be a gem but this place doesn't feel… right to me you know." My words put a slight smile on her face.

"But I want you here! I want both of you here. I mean, I don't want you _here_." He says, gesturing to the cave around us. "I guess Lion wants us here. But _I_ want us to be at the movies! And I want to see lots of explosions." His words put a bigger smile on Connies face, bringing her out of the depressed mood she was in.

Suddenly the glow on the platform ceases, letting Steven go in the process as he almost barrels into Connie, who manages to steady him. The hand pedestal is pulled into the ground and is replaced with an even wider white circle in the ground. Something massive begins to float out of the circle and it turns to us just as it comes out. The thing looks like some sort of robot as it stares at us with wide glowing eyes and some weird tube holes for mouths. What also adds to our grim atmosphere is the fact that these triangle pieces of concrete point out of the ground around us. If I was so sure, and I am, I can hazard a guess that they are pieces to use as cover from whatever this robot is.

"Oh boy." I moan out as I get ready for a fight.

"Should we be worried?" Connie asks.

Steven looks over to Lion who is laying down and looks like he's going to take a nap. "Lion doesn't seem to be worried." _'It's true. Some animals tend to freak out or try to run if something poses a threat to them. If Lions alright, then I guess we can be too.'_ The robot begins to shake a little as it begins to emit electricity from one of its mouth holes. It shoots a ball of electricity at us. "Run!" Steven yells as we all move in opposite directions. I pull out one of my pistols and get ready while hiding behind one of the triangle covers. _'Then again, Lion isn't a normal animal.'_ Peaking out, I look at the floating robot to see it looking at Steven and Connie. I aim and fire a few rounds at the thing. The bullets do no damage as they ricochet off its armor but it's enough to garner its attention. It turns back to me and switches its lower mouth for another one, this one blue.

"Guys! Get to Lion!" I yell to them and take cover behind a different triangle as it fires. Ice immediately covers the entirety of the cover I am on before it cracks and breaks. Staring back at the robot, it switches again, for an orange one. Fire spews from its maw this time.

I jump out of the way and hide behind several of the triangles to keep myself from getting cooked by the flamethrower. Looking to the side, I see the others are next to Lion.

"Get out of here!" I wave them off to go.

"But what about you?" Connie yells to me.

The flames begin to lick at me from around the sides, causing me to flinch. "I'll be fine. You guys get out of here!" I order them to go. The flames suddenly stop. I take the chance and bail out of my cover, moving closer to the others.

"But-"

"Lion!" I interrupt Steven to get his attention. Lion perks up and looks at me. "Get them out here!" Moving out of over, I fire a few more rounds at the robot to keep its attention on me. "Now!" I order.

I don't know if he understood me or not but he nods and picks the both of them up before roaring and conjuring up another portal. He jumps through the portal with them on his back. "Marcus!" Steven yells to me as he disappears through the portal. Taking a deep breath knowing that they are okay, I pull out my other pistol.

"Okay, big man." I say to myself and move out of cover to face the robot with both guns brandished. "Let's dance." With my declaration, I fire a few more rounds at the machine before sprinting off to the side as I continue to fire. The machine sends multiple balls of electricity at me but it doesn't compensate for my fast movement. Seeing my bullets are doing nothing, I slide into cover and quickly reload them. _'Damn! What else to use?'_ I can't take the risk of using my swords straight on otherwise that thing can freeze me, shock me or flambé me before I even get close. _'Maybe a distraction?'_ As it shoots fire at my cover, I look around for anything else to use. It sucks that all those items Steven somehow managed to pull out disappeared before I got a good chance to look at them. Those cannons would have been especially useful for right now. With nothing at eye level, I look up, spotting a few large stalactites. I smile and fire at them, breaking two of the three pieces of rock from the ceiling and hurtling down right on the machine. They impact against it hard, making it sputter and all its glowing lights flash. "Yes!" I fist pump, thinking I got it. However it rights itself up but the lights still blink. "No." I holster my guns and pull out my swords. Moving out of cover I sprint towards the machine and jump just as it regains itself. My swords impact and slide along the bottom of the machine, raking hard against the metal structure of the machine and echoing the cavern of metal on metal.

I roll as I land and look back to see it turn around to look at me. The spot where I hit it barely has a scratch on it. Definitely not enough to do any real damage. Fire begins to form one on its mouths. "Shit." I curse and move out of the way. The thing shoots its flamethrower at me as I sprint past the triangles, the flames being even more intense as my potential cover get eaten away in seconds. When they stop, I quickly duck into cover and assess myself. "Ah!" I yelp as I notice my right arm is on fire. I quickly pat the fire and look around to see that almost all of my cover is gone. "Damnit. I can't take that thing down. Not by myself and certainly not with what I got on me. I need back up or more firepower." I tell myself as I look for a way out around me. To my surprise and relief, Lions portal is still here. _'Or maybe just a way out.'_ "Erg!" I groan out as I am suddenly thrown forward. Rolling on the ground a bit, I stop on my stomach and look back to see that thing shot a fireball at my cover and begins to hover menacingly close to me. I quickly pull out my pistol and aim at it. If this were a speaking enemy, they would probably laugh at me trying to use my useless berretta to try and kill him. But I don't need to kill him.

I just need to stun him.

Shifting my aim higher, I fire at the last stalactite and send it falling towards the machine. Before it manages to spew fire at me, the rock hits hard, stunning it again. Taking my chance, I jump to my feet and sprint for the portal. Because I only used one falling rock this time, the machine manages to reorient itself much quicker but by then, its already too late.

* * *

"Hyaa!" I yell as I come flying out of the portal and land on one hand and knee. Looking up, I see I am in some sort of parking lot. Looking back to the portal, I can't help but smile. "Huh, reminds me of Cortez from Timesplitters." That was one of my favorite games series.

Looking around a bit more, I find I am in front of the movie the movie theater. _'Seriously? Now we're here? Ah forget it. Now where are-'_ "Marcus!"

I am suddenly barreled into by a couple of people as they shout my name and I see that they are Steven and Connie. "Whoa! Hey guys. What's up?"

"You're okay!" Connie says in happiness.

"Yeah, yeah I am." I tell her. A small guts of wind licks at my shoulder burn, causing me to wince. "Well, almost." I gesture towards my arm.

Steven's eyes light up with an idea in his head. He proceeds to rustle through his backpack and pulls out a soda for me. "Sorry it's not cold." He apologizes to me.

"Better than nothing." I thank him and place the full can on my burn. "Besides, I always prefer room temperature drinks. Never like ice in them. Otherwise the water dilutes the drink." I point out non-chalantly. Steven laughs at the info while Connie only smiles.

Steven looks towards the move theater. "Well, we're here. Shall we go in?" he asks with a smile.

"I'll go buy the tickets." I say and proceed towards the ticket counter where a surprised ticket booth lady is manning it. "Hi. Three for Dogcopter 3." I ask for the tickets. She continues to stare at me. "Hello?" I ask as I wave a hand in front of her face through the glass. She places a finger on the glass, pointing behind me. I turn around to see Lions portal is still there. _'Wait, why is it still-'_ Something crashes against the portal and a fireball is sent flying towards a car, exploding it upon impact. "What the-?" I take a closer look at the portal to see it's the robot from the room.

"Oh no." I hear Connie gasp out.

"It's the robot shooty thing!" Steven yells loudly. The machine begins to glow blue while it's still stuck in the portal and aims at the kids.

"Guys!" I yell and sprint towards them. I materialize one of my swords and grab it with both hands just as the machine fires the ball of electricity. I slide in front them and swing my sword at the attack.

In hindsight, I really should have remembered that metal is a great conductor for electricity. I groan out loudly through gritted teeth as my body convulses with the bolts of electricity coursing through my entire body. The shaking soon stops and my body goes limp before I collapse. "Marcus!" the two of them yell out my name and rush to me. They are careful in touching me as my body continues to give off sparks. "Are you okay?" Steven asks me.

"Ye-yeah. I-I-I'm fine. Just… just can't… move." I struggle to give my answer. My body is rigid on the ground from the shock treatment and I feel numb. I don't even feel my sword I still have tightly gripped in my hands.

"The electrical impulses from the attack stunned your entire body. Kinda like a taser." Connie answers.

"Yeah… except without the prongs. Man those things hurt." I reply. She stares at me with a raised eyebrow in a questionable manner. "Don't ask how I know that."

"But! Without you, how are we supposed to beat it?" Steven asks Connie and me before turning to Lion. "Lion, what do we do?"

' _Yeah, like that furball can do anything to help because he's been soooo helpful…'_ Lions eyes suddenly turn white and begin glowing before he lowers himself to the ground and a sword hilt with a symbol similar to the one in the cave appears out of his head. _'… so far.'_

Steven grabs the sword and begins to pull it out of Lion's head with an awestruck look on his face. "Uh... this is weird, right?" Steven asks in an unsure tone.

"Yeah, it kinda is." I can't help but add my own comment to the situation.

He then manages to fully pull it out and holds the large weapon above his head. "You have a sword in your head?! Why don't you tell me you can do these things you do?!" Steven asks the animal incredulously.

"Yeah that sounds like info we could have used a little while ago Lion!" I yell at the beast from my position on the ground. It doesn't even bat an eye at my outburst or the fact that Steven just pulled a sword that's taller than he or Connie from its forehead.

"It came through." Connies outburst makes me curl my head towards the portal to see the robot manage to wedge itself free from the portal.

"Crap." Before anything else can be done, the bottom part of the machine begins to rotate rapidly. It retaliates against us by shooting every single elemental attack it has in its arsenal all over the place. Balls of electricity, fire and ice begin firing and impacting all over the place, electrocuting cars, burning and scorching the concrete landscape, and freezing windows. One hit nails the sign above the theater and knocks it off, making it land in front of us. I manage to feel the ground shake from the sign and the attacks so I'm glad some feeling is coming back to my body.

"What do I do with this?!" Steven asks in a terrified manner while holding the sword a little wobbly.

"Grip it with both hands. Hold it firmly and in front of you." I try to instruct him how to hold the sword. I don't know how they are going to use it to destroy that thing but if Lion gave it to them, then it must be good for something.

A ball of electricity is sent straight towards us."Guys! Look out!" I warn them.

"Watch out!" Connie warns as well in a similar terrified manner as Steven and helps him steady his sword. I don't know what Connie did but she manages to help Steven swing the sword against the attack, deflecting the attack directly against its shooter. The machine sputters a bit in a more violent manner than when I hit it with the stalactites and the lights flash more hazardly. The happy look on their faces shows that we have found this enemies weakness. They look back to me.

"Becareful, and good luck you two." I warn and wish them luck with a nod of my head. I'm getting feeling in my head and neck area so I'm thankful for that at least. They nod back and both steady themselves as the machine rights itself again.

The machine begins to fire balls of fire this time at them. "Foreand!" Connie yells as she helps Steven guide the sword to deflect the attack. Feeling begins to come back to my legs as I try to stand up. "Backhand!" They deflect another attack and I could swear they are using tennis moves. I manage to get to my feet but my hands are still grasping the sword, not surprised since they were the point of entry for the electricity. "Overhead…" the two of them yell and hit another attack but I see its pushing hard against them. I move over to them and rear back to hit their sword."Death strike!" They yell and just as they finish, I swing my sword hard against theirs, adding the last force they need to send the attack right back to the machine. The ball of fire shoots right back into the hole of the machine and explodes.

Bits and pieces of the machine explode all over the place and rain down around us. I move in front of them to keep anything from hitting them. Once it's done, we all stare, awestruck.

"Just like tennis practice." Connie whispers.

"Magical destiny practice." Steven whispers as well.

"I wanna take tennis practice." I demand.

With nothing else for us to do, we make our way to the ticket booth, the lady from before still there as she pokes her head out to see us. "Hi!" Steven asks happily and innocently, despite the fact that Connie has the sword they used slung over her shoulder, Lion is peaking at the side of the window, and I am still gripping my sword like I want to attack. Both the ticket lady and I can't help but look to see a flaming tire roll-by behind us.

"Uh, hello." She greets us albeit awkwardly.

"Two kids, one adult, and one lion to see Dogcopter." Steven gestures to the animal, who snorts on the booth window, fogging the window up a little. _'I could probably argue about the adult thing but a movie sounds nice so I won't complain.'_

She takes a good look at Lion before leaning in closer, "Um, do you have a rewards card?"

* * *

"Marcus! Put your sword down. It's cutting across the screen."

"I can't! I think my hands are still fuse to this damn thing." Connie and I whisper harshly to each other. I don't know why we are considering I don't think anyone else is in here with us. I don't know what it was that freaked the people out more, the little girl holding the sword, the teenager holding the Japanese sword threateningly, or the massive lion animal that's seating in a couple seats to hold his weight and size. I also can't help but look up and see him wearing his 3-D glasses, not deterred in the least at having them on.

Looking towards the two kids next to me, I can't help but smile at how well they fought that thing earlier ago.

' _And to think, who knew tennis lessons could be so life-saving.'_ I think as I take a sip from my drink.

 **Felt good to right a chapter that wasn't completely emotional enduring. Not sure if the next one will be similar but I do probably have something planned for 'Rose's Room.'**

 **Also, some of you have also asked as to why exactly I switched the rating from T to M. As I said before, it was more of a precaution on my part. I know the major differences between the ratings T and M but I don't know the minor differences that could tip the line over between T and M. I'll switch the rating back to T but I would then have to rely on you guys for those tiny details that say 'M rating'. I know if a sexual scene is included, M, if major blood filled chapters take place, M, and complete off the wall cursing like every other sentence, M. But if only a few curse words here and there and implied sexual encounters, I know those could be considered T. Excuse my paranoia but I just want to be prepared in case someone calls me out on it. If you guys want to help with telling me when the T should become an M, go right ahead. For now I'll go ahead and change it back to T. Also this isn't going to be a back and forth kind of thing. If it goes to M later, it stays M, just to let you all know. I'm not a super major writer so that's why I'm not entirely skilled when it comes to this rating thing so sorry for the confusion.**

 **I'd definitely appreciate the help but I'm not forcing you guys to do it. Anyway, till next time.**


	11. 10 Beach Party

Steven and I decided to not bother in telling the gems about the secret armory place, especially since only Lion could access it and with how critical some of the gems could be, we both agreed that we don't want them to force the animal to show them. Besides, from what I could gather the place only went active when Steven was there so as long as he isn't, the place will remain inactive. Even so, none of our injuries were life threatening and nothing was permanent. Turns out my fingers weren't fused to my sword, instead because of them being in direct contact to the metal that was conducting the electricity, they locked up pretty hard against the aforementioned object and were lightly singed. After the movie was over, my hands relaxed and I was able to move them again, as well as send my sword away too. After that, things were pretty normal for awhile and we were able to relax a bit.

"Aaaaaah!"

"Whoaaaaa!"

Until today that is.

A giant gust of winds sends Amethyst and Steven flying back while Garnet, Pearl and I go sliding back with me having one of my swords plunged into the sand to prevent me from lifting off my feet. "Steven!" Pearl yells to the kid who's lying on a boogie board.

"You alright bro?!" I call out to him as I stand back up.

"I've seen better days." Steven replies as he gets back up.

"Pearl, I got a boo-boo." Amethyst innocently says to the pale gem.

"Oh, walk it off!" Pearl scolds the purple gem.

"Yeah! You don't see Steven complaining." I point out.

"Here it comes!" Garnet yells to us. As she does, a giant pink and green pufferfish monster rises out of the sea and blows another strong gust of wind towards us, albeit not as strong as the last one considering we are a much farther distance away from it. "You all distract it!" Garnet orders us and jumps off into the air. With her departure we all ready ourselves.

"Let's show this thing what we're made of, guys!" Pearl says to us.

"What do you think we've been doing for the past hour?" Amethyst counters Pearl.

"Less talky, more poppy!" I stop any heated argument that could transpire before it can even begin between the two.

Pearl attacks by lunging her spear directly at the monster, who responds by blowing another gust of wind towards us except this time Pearls spear is sent hurtling towards. "Duck!" Pearl warns as she hits to the sand but Amethyst looks around aimlessly.

"Amethyst! Get your head in the game!" I yell as I sprint towards her, wanting to catch the weapon.

"Man, I don't see any duc-" She finally sees the spear and ducks, but I manage to grab the spear before she realized it and I manage to redirect the movement of the spear. The only thing that happened was that some of her hair got chopped off. "Quack!" she says as she ducks.

"Pearl!" I call to her as I chuck the spear towards her. She deafly catches it and twirls it around herself in kind before she firmly grabs it.

"Thanks."

" No problem." I respond to her thanks as I move to her side.

"Steven's turn!" I hear Steven's voice behind me. Suddenly the boogie board he was holding onto sails over my head, spinning through the air like a Frisbee before getting impaled by one of its spikes. "Yup, it's got spikes.

"What was your first clue?" I say as I stab my right sword into the sand and pull out my pistol. I fire a couple rounds at the thing nowhere in particular and hope that they pop it. Unfortunately fate does not smile on me today as the rounds simply ricochet off or are stopped cold in the things flesh but otherwise it seems unharmed. "And its bullet proof." I say and holster my gun.

"It's okay, here comes Garnet!" At Amethysts words I notice a shadow on the ground and look up to see Garnet flying straight towards the creatures with her fist out. _'Holy- How the hell can they jump like that?! Seriously!'_

"Smash that puff!" Steven encourages Garnet but I think the pufferfish noticed where we are looking at because it immediately refocuses its attention to Garnet and sends a gust of wind towards the gem halting her just before she makes contact. Before any of us can intervene or help, the monster doubles its blasting power and sends Garnet flying back to the boardwalk.

"Garnet! You bastard!" I yell and run towards the monster, grabbing my sword in the ground. Having both my swords in hand, I sprint around the fish to hopefully get within its blind spot as the tips of my swords graze the sand, leaving lines along my footprints. The thing begins to turn around the get an angle on me but it's not until we do a complete 360 do I find a suitable rock to launch myself off of. Running up it, I bring my swords back and prepare to pop this thing. However it does to me what it did to Garnet. It aims directly at me and sends me flying through the air before I can hit it. "Oohhhhh craaaaaaaap!" I yell as I start tumbling through the air.

"Marcus!" I hear the others faintly call out my name.

* * *

I count a few seconds while I'm in the air but I have no idea where I'm going since I only glance at the ground a few times at best.

*Crash*

However before I can make a proper landing strategy, glass suddenly embeds itself in my back as I also roll on the ground a few times and I'm pretty sure I hit a counter before slamming into something metal. "Ow. Oh man. That was crazy. Got to- OW!" AS I try to get up so I can go back and help the others, something big and metal lands on my head and plunges my world into darkness. _'If I had to guess, a pot and I probably was flung into a kitchen.'_ I stop my thoughts there as my world continues to spin from my tumbling in the air and the smack on the head as I try to keep myself from hurling all over the floor. Don't want to unnecessarily give this place a problem with the health department now do we.

"You alright?" I faintly hear a voice through the metal prison on my head. Reaching up, I push the edge of the metal object up enough for me to see who's talking. I'm immediately greeted by an African American teenager girl with a hand on her hip.

"Could be better." I respond.

"Here. Let me help you with that." She gives me aid by taking the pot off my head, placing it back where it was before giving me a hand in standing up.

"Thank you." I thank her as I stand up while still a little sore.

"No problem." When she releases my hand, we delve into a slight awkward silence between to two of us. "Soooooo, not to pry or anything, but why are you in my family's restaurant kitchen with a pot on your head?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, sorry. I was uhhh, helping my friends with something and I- Oh god! Guys!" Before I can finish my explanation, I suddenly remember the fight we were in and brush past the girl.

"Hey!" she exclaims as I move to the counter and look out the window to see if I can see the others. To my relief, I see them calmly walking towards the store I fell through. It looks like a family, especially the father, do not look happy.

"Phew. Alright, we're good." I say out loud and turn back to the girl, who has a slight scowl on her face, no doubt from me almost barreling past her like that. "Sorry about that. I was doing something dangerous with my friends but it looks like their good." I try to explain my situation to her without giving away too much info.

"Who are your friends?" she asks as she walks closer to me. She looks past me to see who it was I was talking about and sees the others. "Oh! You know Steven Universe?" she asks me with a bit of happiness in her tone.

"Yeah, I do. He's one of my best friends." I answer her. Just by answering to her that I'm friends with Steven shouldn't be detrimental to me whatsoever, hopefully.

"That's cool. Steven's a pretty cool kid to hang around with. He even helped that Lars guy with that moss stuff that attacked me and some of my other friends while back." The girl responds with her arms crossed. _'Moss? I remember Steven telling me about that moss that his mother planted awhile back and how he helped Lars save some teenagers when they ignored Pearl's police tape.'_ Remembering Stevens tale of the event as well as the description he gave us of the 'cool kids.' I squint my eyes at the girl.

"Wait, your Jenny then." I deduce her identity.

"Yeah! That's me." She agrees and extends her hand to me. "Sorry. I'm Jenny. Jenny Pizza."

I shake her hand. "Marcus Castellanos. Pleasure to meet you." When we finish, I can't help but smirk at her. "You know going past that police tape was not a bright idea."

"Hehe, yeah." She chuckles nervously while scratching the back of her head. "That wasn't one of our best ideas."

"He, I imagine so."

"Where's Marcus?" Looking back to the others, I see them glancing around outside in hopes of finding me.

"Crap. I better get back to the others before- Ah!" I yelp as pain shoots through my right foot, making me stumble.

"Watch it!" Jenny quickly grabs me before I can fall to the ground. "You okay?"

"A little." I note and try to put pressure on my ankle. "Damnit. I think I dislocated my ankle. This sucks." I voice my displeasure of the situation.

"Here." She grabs my right arm and slings it over her shoulder. "Let me help you outside."

"Thanks, I appreciate it." I voice my thanks to her as she helps me around the counter.

"No problem. If your friends with Steven, you can't be all bad." She notes with a smile.

I can't help but let out a chuckle at her words. _'You know, in person Jenny doesn't seems so bad. I guess it was just the storytelling and my own perception that made me think them bad. Hopefully her friends are as… generous.'_

* * *

"I'm fine." Garnet says as she lands in front of the other gems.

"Hi, Steven."

"Hey, Kiki!" Steven responds to the girl before looking around. "Now, where's Marcus? I was sure he came flying in this direction." Steven says as he looks around for any other signs of damage.

"Maybe he landed behind the store?" Pearl muses.

"Hello?! Are you going to do something about my shop?!" The man yells to the gems in a very angry tone.

"We can't." Amethyst bluntly says.

"We have to find our friend." Garnet explains.

"Relax. He's right here." They all turn to the direction of the new voice and see Jenny helping me walk out of the front door of the shop.

"Marcus! You're okay!" Steven happily yells as I grab the door frame to steady myself as I push myself off of Jenny.

"Yeah, somewhat." I reply and gesture to my ankle. Pearl walks over and kneels down to examine my ankle. "You think you can-"

*Crack*

"OW!... Thank you." With a loud crack, Pearl twists my ankle harshly, making the other humans wince. I move my ankle around and find I can put pressure on it again. Still sore but nothing too serious.

"You're welcome. The bone was just slightly knocked out of place. It'll be sore for awhile but you should be fit to fight again within a couple hours." Pearl explains.

"That's good." I say and look around us. Moving myself around to make sure everything is right, I twist my head a couple times to pop my neck and I pop my spine. "Arg!" I yelp as I feel something behind me. "Hold on." I hold up a finger as I feel behind me for what caused the pain. My fingers brush something sharp, making me wince at what it could be. Firmly grasping it, I quickly pull it out and bring it over to my face and in view of everyone. It's a small but somewhat long piece of glass that was embedded in my spine. Most of the family people look either sick or horrified at the bloody piece of glass but the gems all look none the difference. I turn to the side and toss the glass towards a nearby dumpster. While looking at said waste receptacle, I notice that both my swords left my hands in mid-air as I was falling because they are both lodged in the side of the store I fell through. "Oh." I grab one of my swords and jerk it off the wood before doing the same to the other. With both swords now back to me, I make them disappear before turning to the gems. "So, what happened while I was flung?"

"You and Garnet wrecked this place! Gimme one down low!" Amethyst says with a raised high-five hoping we would take it however Pearl pushes the limb down.

"No accolades for you, Amethyst!" Pearl scolds her before looking towards me. "You and Garnet damaged this establishment."

"Me and…" I let the question hang in the air as I look towards the mentioned gem. Garnet responds by pointing above the store. Taking a few steps toward them and away from the store, I look to see what they mean. "Oh, wow. Yeah that's a problem." I comment as I stare at the giant caved in part of the sign for this place. _'Man. That's just rotten luck for them.'_ I think as I stare at both the destroyed sign and the broken window I crashed through.

"Yes, it is." The father I'm pretty sure, and owner if I had to guess about his attitude, says in more than a slightly irritated tone.

"She also knocked the pufferfish back out into the ocean." Pearl says.

"What?" I say annoyingly towards the purple gem. "Seriously Amethyst. We spent a long while trying to take him down and now you basically forced us to search for it. Nice job." I say the last part sarcastically.

"Narc." She grumbles to Pearl.

"Let's regroup back at the temple." Garnet orders us and the three of them proceed to jump away.

"Hey! Not all of us have super human jumping ability's!" I call out to them. I don't know if they heard me or not but I still see them flying and landing near the temple rocks. "I'll see you back home Steven. I need to find a better weapon and strategy to use against that fish when it comes back." With that, I sprint towards the temple while the man continues to yell at us.

"Bye! See you later!" I hear Jenny yell to me. I respond by waving back but continuing to run forward. I'd like to stay and help but right now that fish could do a lot more damage if left unchecked.

It doesn't take me long to make it to the others as they walk back to the temple. They stop as they notice me. "So, any plans?" I ask.

"We're still working on it." Garnet answers.

"Hm, well in that case, I'm going to rummage around my truck to see if I have anything that can pierce that things hide. If just one bullet can pierce it, it should act like a balloon basically and blow up." I propose as we round the mound of rocks to the temple steps and my vehicles.

"Sounds like a plan." Amethyst agrees.

"Good."

"Uh, Marcus, where's your truck?" Pearl asks.

I give her a confused look, "What do you mean? It's right…" I trail off as I see the mysteriously placed hill of sand right in front of us. Normally one would not be too caught up in the item in question, but you would when you see black corners of metal poking out of the sides of the sand. "My truck!" I exclaim loudly and in panic as I rush to the mound and proceed to dig out my stuff.

"Whelp, now we know where all that sand went now don't we?" Amethyst jokes while continue to push sand all over the place.

"Not now, Amethyst." Pearl says to her with gritted teeth, not in the mood for a joke either.

"Seriously!" I yell as I find that the tarp covering my bike and my weapon cases was blown off, covering everything in sand. "God, man! This is gonna take me a couple hours to dig out and days to clean everything!" I growl out in anger. Calming down a little, I turn back to the others, "I know we have to deal with the fish guys but, do you think you could-"

*Boom!*

A large gust of window interrupts me from the sonic blast liked effect Garnet did with her gauntlets and I suddenly find myself thrown off my buried vehicle and covered in sand. "Thank you." My thanks is muffled by the sand.

"No problem." Garnet says as she makes her gauntlets disappear.

"Buah!" I burst out of the sand and proceed to throw all of it off me and my clothes. Looking at my stuff, the majority of the sand was blown off and only bits of it are still in the back of my truck and in the cracks of everything I have. "Alright, well I can't leave this here." I say to myself. _'Without my tarp and the sand proving just how bothersome it would be to leave my stuff here, I need to do something about it.'_ I shift towards the others. "Now I need one more thing."

* * *

"That's the last of it." Amethyst says as she places the last few cases from my truck down on the pile next to the warp pad inside the temple. When she does, she shifts from her wrestling persona form back to her regular self.

"Thanks again." I thank her as I examine my motorcycle, looking for any wear, tear and anomalies that could damage it should I start it up now.

"No prob bob." She replies as she walks back to the kitchen.

"You're sure this will be alright, Marcus?" Pearl asks me, again.

"For the last time Pearl, yes everything will be alright with my equipment here. I know your worried about Steven possibly getting into my weapons stash but you have to remember that these things were designed to take punishment so any possibly Steven getting into them by brute force would take hours. Besides he's not that curious that he would deliberately destroy it just to get inside." I try to explain as I use a flashlight to examine the tailpipe.

"Yes but-"

"And all of my cases carrying any sort of harmful equipment is double locked with two different ones each." I say and stand up to look at the dials, "Plus I have the keys on me at all times and the codes for getting through the code lock for each one are all in my head." I interrupt her before she can protest some more. Seeing that nothing is life threatening for the machine, I stand back up and head towards the others sitting around the island counter in the middle of the kitchen. "So unless he can read minds, he's not getting in." I take a seat.

Pearl scowls a bit before resigning herself, "Very well." I smile.

"Good. Now that that's taken care of, the pufferfish." Garnet gets us back into what we were originally doing.

"Why don't we just, like, let it roam free?" Amethyst proposes an impossible idea.

"Are you serious?" I give her a deadpan expression.

"That's not an option." Garnet voices my thoughts on the matter as I hear the door open. I look to see Steven walking towards us looking a little glum.

"Hey, Steven!"

"Hey man. What's up? You look down." Amethyst and I greet the kid.

"I've got bad news, everyone. You've all been banned from Fish Stew Pizza." Steven gives us the apparent bad news.

"Ohhhh… no?" I say more as a question. _'Never been to the place really. With a name that has fish and pizza in it, I don't think I'd like to try that type of pizza.'_

"Oh, uhhh, that's okay." Pearl responds, not too broken up about the situation.

"That pizza wasn't even that good." Amethyst comments on the place. _'Oh good, I have a reference for the place.'_ I think. Then again, Amethyst eats everything.

"Aren't you guys upset about this?" He asks us.

"Not at all." Garnet bluntly tells him.

"But these are our neighbors!"

"There's nothing we can do about that now."

"She's right." I agree with Garnet.

"Right now we have to figure out a way to take care of that pufferfish." Pearl voices our objective right now.

"What's the point of saving people if they're just gonna ban you from their pizza shops?" Steven tries to reconsider our take on the situation.

"We don't do it for thanks." Garnet however shuts down that idea.

"She's right, again. Chances are if we end up wanting to do it for the thanks, we might become dependent on the compliments and we would slowly trickle away from wanting to help." I try to come up with an explanation. I'm met with stares. "Well, I'm not sure about gems really but I know some humans could end up that way."

"Yeah, see! That's so nice of you, the Pizzas don't even know! If they got to spend some time with you they'd see how fun," Steven gestures to Amethyst, "And smart," To Pearl, "And powerful," now to me. _'Thanks man.'_ "And mysterious you are!" He finishes up with Garnet.

Garnet chuckles at her description, "Hah, mysterious."

"Hmm..." Steven begins to think, probably some way to fix this mess we are all in that apparently needs to be addressed so quickly. He suddenly gasps, "I know! I'll throw a little party on the beach in front of the temple! Just us and the Pizzas." He proposes.

"I don't know, Steven. I mean..." Amethyst tries to push down the idea but doesn't get the chance.

"Don't worry! I'll take care of everything!" he proclaims and proceeds to run outside.

None of us say anything as we all begin to think on the possibilities of what might happen at this party. "This… probably won't turn out well, will it?" I ask out loud.

"Most likely." Garnet says in a neutral tone.

* * *

Before long, I find myself outside of the temple on the beach with Steven as we grill some hotdogs and hamburgers on a grill. "Man, this is gonna be so good." Steven says as he gets a big whiff of the cooked food before giggling.

"Are you sure about this? I mean, we did kinda wreck their shop and we have powers not meant for everyday people…" I trail off nervously. It's not every day that we the Crystal gems hangout with normal humans. Hell I didn't for a long ass time. Mostly after some people called me a freak but I digress. This family is still most likely pissed at us for the broken window and sign.

"Don't worry about it, Marcus. I got this." He says confidently.

I stare at him for a few more seconds before letting out a breath, "*Sigh* Fine."

"Hey, Steven." Looking up from the meat cooking, Steven and I spot the gems coming to us.

"Hey!"

"Glad you could make it." Steven and I greet them.

"Got everything ready for your little party?" Pearl asks Steven because she knows that I was just as nervous about this as the gems are.

"Yeah, and there's one more thing." Steven reaches behind him and pulls out a magazine to give to the gems. On the cover it reads 'Foine Summer Special' and if I had to guess, it's some sort of beach clothing magazine.

"What's this for?"Amethyst asks.

"I was thinking you guys could change your outfits." He proposes to them specifically. Now that I compare us to the gems, their clothing is much more… abnormal when compared to human standards of course.

"What's wrong with what we have on now?" Pearl asks him curiously.

"Nothing. I just thought it would be nice to go kinda casual." He replies.

I guess I can see that. We all wear almost the same clothes whenever we got out on missions basically. My jacket is basically my signature at this point wherever I go, mostly because I like the feel of it, my gun holsters are strapped to the inside of it and it makes me feel like I have a second skin to protect me from minor things, and I'm pretty sure the gems clothes are all some sort self-fixing/self-cleaning thing going on considering they can change the styles by will. _'Besides, they don't look that bad, especially Pearl. Ever since she reformed, which I am still thankful for and hope it never happens again, I've kinda liked her new look. The clothing is more fleshed out and definitely suits her more, especially her sash. I don't know what it is but-'_

"Is this the right address?" My train of thought cuts off at the new elderly voice. Looking towards the rocks that lead to the city, I see the Pizza family walking towards us.

"I've never seen this side of the beach before." I hear Jenny comment. _'Good, that means our secret is still a secret. Hopefully still after today.'_

"Oh man, they're here! Hurry up and change." Steven tells the gems and walks to the Pizza family. "Over here everyone!" he waves to them to get their attention. "Hi!"

"Hey, Steven!" Jenny and another girl similar in age to her greet Steven. _'Probably a sister.'_

"Hello." The elderly woman greets him as well.

"How are you all doing today?" Steven innocently asks them all.

"The shop is closed today, because it's broken!" The man angrily points out, making his family look around nervously. I can't help but scratch the back of my head at the memory of their establishment. _'Yep, figured that would be a problem.'_ I think as the gems walk up to me.

"Oh, uh, that sounds, uh..." Steven nervously says, trying to come up with a response as he begins to seat.

"Hey! Do I smell hot dogs? Show me where the hot dogs are." Thankfully the elderly woman changes the subject in favor of food.

"Oh, right this way, everyone." Steven happily says and proceeds to lead them towards us. "First, let me introduce-"

"We are the Crystal Gems!" Garnet immediately cuts him off. "Garnet!" she yells her name and ins a glow on her body, changes into a more beachwear preferred style.

"Amethyst!" says and changes as well. I can't help but smile at seeing her ponytail. _'It suits her.'_

"Pearl!" Pearl, who to my surprise changes into a sort of dress or gown type of beachwear, introduces herself. _'Never really pictured her in the dress wearing type.'_

With the others introduced the eyes shift to me. "Marcus." I say my name and cross my arms while turning my back to the gems.

"And Steven! But you already knew my name..." Steven pops in but his intro kinda peters off.

"Oh, you're all so talented." The elder woman compliments us. Mostly the gems I imagine since they were the ones to be all flashy with their clothes changing.

"So, you _are_ a circus act." The man practically scoffs. ' _Wait, what?'_

"Circus act?" Pearl voices my thoughts.

"Circus act my a-"

"Hey, let's eat!" Steven nervously suggests for us all to do, as well as cutting off my grumbling to myself.

* * *

Before long, we are at a table and happily eating, well some of us are. As usual Amethyst proceeds to lift her burger off the table and loudly takes a large bite of it while Pearl and Garnet do not eat. I went ahead and chose a burger for my meal as well, although I'm a bit less reserved in my chewing of my food. I was able to get the names of the rest of the family that came along besides Jenny of course. The sister of Jenny is named Kiki, the angry gentleman is the father named Kofi, and the elderly woman is called Nanefua.

"Everything came out great!" Kiki compliment Steven on his cooking skills.

"She's right, nice job man." I join in and take delicious bite o my burger. _'Dude knows how to grill, that's for sure.'_

"Thanks, you two." Steven replies.

"Aren't you girls hungry?" I pause mid-bite as Nanefua takes note of the only two gems not eating. "You've barely touched your food." She continues as I glance nervously between them.

"We don't _need_ to eat." Garnet bluntly says, even making sure the 'need' part is heard.

"Oh, you young people and your experimental diets." Nanefua chalks it up to teenage life. I breathe a sigh of relief at the potential secret revealed being aborted.

"I am much older than you." And there it comes again.

"Eheheheee, she just means she's much more mature her age." I nervously say and lean towards Garnet. "Ex-nay on the centuries age." I don't know if she understood but she makes no move to respond.

"So, you all live in that tiny house up on that hill?" Kofi points out our home on the rocks. Looking at it again, I can't help but smile at the craftsmanship of the statue embedded in the mountain itself.

"We inhabit the inner sanctums, only accessible through magical-"

' _Is she seriously trying to give away our secret?!'_ I scream in my head as I grab her literal sparkling hand and pull it down, grinning nervously as I do so. "Sheeeeee means it's a lot bigger on the inside." I give her a slight glare and retain a more calm her face. "The nice chunk of the mountain was hollowed out so while it looks small out here, we have enough living space to live out our everyday lives… and then some." I bullshit my way through my teeth, hoping he bought it and didn't notice the lightshow Garnet was giving. The man only purses his lips in contemplation before silently returning to his food. _'Crisis averted.'_ I take a bite of my burger.

"So, then maybe you can tell why this place look like it's falling apart?" Jenny asks. Looking towards the temple again, I do notice the wear that the place is starting to see after being here for so long, especially since one of the hands has fallen off. Looking down at said fallen hand, I can't help but note the hand is angled like a ramp.

"Well, the temple has been here for thousands of years-"

"Oh! I see how it is," Pearl begins to explain but is cut rather rudely by Kofi. "When something breaks around here, you just leave it alone. JUST LIKE THE SIGN AT MY SHOP!" He practically yells at us.

My eyes lightly narrow at the man for yelling. _'Yes I know your shop is broken. I'm sorry it is but man are you starting to try my patience.'_

"Um... who wants to play volleyball?" Steven suggests.

"I call referee!" I yell as I immediately throw my hand into the air. I'm met with silent stares. "I'm not much of a volleyball type of guy so I think it's best I just keep an eye out, you know?" I give my best explanation. Moving, hiding, fighting, protecting, those are my bread and butter. Making friends and social activities… not so much.

* * *

Steven draws out the boundaries for the volleyball court in the sand as I sit myself on top of the high chair.

"Okay, everyone, the court is all set. Now to get into our teams."

"But, Steven, won't our abilities give us an unfair advantage?" Pearl points out the obvious. Even though I'm a little miffed at the mention of our abilities, and I know they could stop themselves from using them, I don't think they could accurately diminish their strength capabilities.

"That's why I'm picking the teams. Amethyst and Jenny! Pearl and Kiki! Garnet and Kofi! And last, but not least, yours truly and Nanefua!" Steven chooses the teams. I smile at his placement of who the teams are. Each one has at least a gem in it so the humans are all on relatively equal terms. _'Nice job man. Very smart.'_

"I haven't played in ages but I bet I could whoop all your butts." I can help but smile at the cockyness the elderly woman exhibits.

"That's the spirit. You guys ready? Let's play!" Steven begins the game as team Amethyst, Jenny, and Pearl, Kiki head to their respective sides on the courts.

"Oh-ho! Hope you're ready to lose, Pearl."

"There is no way I'd lose to someone like you!" Amethyst and Pearl begin the trash talk before the two begin to hit the ball to each other. It only took a couple hits before Amethyst and Jenny missed, although Amethysts attempt at kicking the ball did not go unnoticed.

"Amethyst! No kicking!" Steven calls out.

"What kind of game is this?" She grumbles, obviously not too happy with that rule.

"Nicely done, Kiki!" Pearl compliments her human partner with a high-five before they get back to game.

"Try and stick to the rules, Amethyst!"

"Try harder, Jenny!" Stevven and Nanefua say to them both.

"Here it comes!" Kiki hits theball over net, or she would have if Jenny didn't grab the net and make it wobble, hitting the ball. "Come on, Jenny!"

"What? I'm not doing anything." Jenny tries to say innocently.

"Yes you are. Point: Pearl and Kiki." I proclaim the winners with an arm gesture.

"Yes!" the winners high-five each other again.

"What?! Aw come on, Marcus." Amethyst whines.

"Don't grab the net." I say, reminding them of the rule.

"Our turn." Kofi says as he and Garnet walk onto the court after Pearl and Kiki vacated their side.

"I'm ready." Garnet announces and launches the ball.

"I got this one." Jenny calls out as she moves to intercept the ball.

" Jennifer! You touch that ball, you're grounded!"

"Whoa! Daddy, you cheatin'!" Jenny calls out to her father.

"HA-HA-HA! The look on your face! Hahaha!"

"Penalty: Garnet and Kofi." I announce out loud, making sure everyone heard me.

"What?!" Kofi calls out to me in surprise, "What for?"

"Unsportsman-like parentingship." I voice the reason, keeping a straight face. Kofi grumbles.

"Don't worry, we still got this." Garnet tries to alleviate her human partner.

"Take this, Garnet! Yeeeee-ha!" Amethyst proceeds to hit the ball high up in the air.

Garnet responds by jumping high into the air, higher than the ball itself. "Haaaghh! Ah!" She spikes the ball hard towards Amethyst and Jenny.

"We should probably move, huh?" Jenny asks her partner.

"Yeah... we should." Amethyst agrees and the two of them move away from the impact zone. The ball was traveling so fast because of Garnets hit that the fire that formed around it super-heated the sand, creating a giant spike ice structure.

"Hahaha! You're all running like wild chickens! Hahahaha!" Kofi proceeds to laugh at his daughters misery.

"Woaaaaah!" Jenny and Amethyst voice their awe at the thing that is occupying their court. I have to admit, the ice structure looks pretty badass, and dangerous but still awesome.

Amethyst then takes the glass heated by the ball and throws it into the ocean, grunting at the same time. "Let's play!"

Thing is, after Amethyst's declaration, things start really go crazy. Amethyst forgets the rules, Kofi abuses his fatherly privileges with his daughters, the gems continue to over-extend their abilities, and the biggest of all to my most disappointment, and to my surprise, Pearl decided to summon not one, but five her holo-versions. I could help but place my head in my hands at Pearls carelessness. Everything happens so fast it's a little hard to keep track of who screwed up and who is sinning at this point. It isn't long before an argument ensues between all three teams. With a resounding sigh, I hop off my place and walk over to the ball. Steven had the same idea because the two of us walk along each other.

"Well, this got interesting." I point out a bit awkwardly.

"I guess. I just wanted everyone to get along." He looks back to the others still arguing. "Now their fighting more than ever."

"Ah, don't worry man." I try to reassure him by placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure things can't get any worse." I try to lift his spirts.

"Maybe…" he trails off as the wind starts to pick us as we make it to the ball. "Hey, why is it getting so... WINDY!?" Steven cries out as the watermelon colored pufferfish rounds the corner.

"Me and my big mouth." I curse myself mentally for jinxing us.

"Ah, no! It's back! Pufferfish monster's back!" Steven yells out and runs to the others with me hot on his heels.

"What's all the-" Nanefua begins to say but gets cut off.

"Nanefua! Ruuuunnn!" Steven yells out as I try to keep myself from mis-stepping along the massive cloud of sand.

Amazingly, the others are still arguing about who's cheating, who's wins, and Kofi grounding everyone. _'Enough of this.'_ Whirling around, I grab my guns and open fire on the monster.

"What is-"

"Garrneeeet!" Steven yells and my gunshots finally cease their arguing and gets the gems to notice the monster.

"Steven! Marcus! Oh, no! Gems! Protect the Pizzas!" After distracting it enough, I turn back around to see each of the gems grab their human partners and jump away to safety. I sprint away from the monster and manage to hide amongst the rocks near the base of the mountain. The monster begins spinning around and proceeds to blow everything away, sand, water, the table, even the grll… right at me.

"Whoa!" I duck as the grill slams into the wall above me, raining hot charcoal pieces on me. I quickly brush them off and carefully peer over my cover again.

"Oh! Oh! Over here!"

"No! Over here! Come on!" I can't help but gawk at seeing Nanefua and Steven tag-team the creature in opposite directions, confusing it immensely. _'For an old broad, she sure can move.'_

"Oh my gosh! Steven!"

"What are they doing?" Pearl and Kiki yell out to the two of them.

"Everybody! Get ready!" Steven responds.

"Ready?" I mumble. _'Ready for what?'_

Steven and Nanefua then begin to call out various jobs that everyone needs to do, Amethyst turning into a ball, rolling her to the net, Pearl hitting Amethyst into the air and Garnet spiking her back to the ground. It isn't until the ice forms on the sand that everything clicks. _'Of course.'_ I smile with my thoughts and look around for anything I can do to help. Remembering something, I take off around the corner.

* * *

"Marcus! Where are you going?!" Steven calls out to his companion as the man runs away from the battle.

"Focus! Everyone take the net to the other side of the court!" Nanefua orders everyone.

"Okay, everyone, pull the net into its face!" Steven adds. With that, everyone begins to push the net onto the monster's face, forcing it against spiked ice but not enough to pop it.

"It's not enough!" Nanefua calls out.

"Don't worry, here comes Garnet!" Steven alleviates everyones fear of the plan going awry as Garnet flies through the air towards the monster, just like last time. Unfortunately, the holes in the net allow for enough air to pass through to halt Garnet again just before she hits it.

"It's still not enough!" Pearl yells. Everyone begins to worry again as Garnet tries to push through the opposing air force.

"What are we- Huh?" Steven begins to ask before a peculiar sound interrupts him.

*Vvvvvrrrooooooommm!*

A shadow follows Garnet.

* * *

"Ooh Rah!" I yell the marine war cry as my truck sails through the air towards the monster. I remembered the hand that looked like a ramp from earlier and decided to bring in a bit more mass to use against the creature.

My intuition was correct as when I rounded the corner, I saw the others forcing the pufferfish against the ice with Garnet trying to deliver the final push. Seeing she needed help, I took the opportunity. My truck isn't impeded at all by the air being blown at me and with the combined force of both my vehicle and Garnet, it pops.

Only problem is, Garnet lands gracefully on the ground while my tuck isn't as fortunate. I slam hard into the soft sand by my grill, managing to fly over the spiked ice and I flip forward onto my roof. My whole world is thrown upside down and filled with sand as I already feel blood starting to rush to my head. "I did not think this through enough."

"Marcus!" A voice calls to my left and for a second I'm blinded by the light pouring into the truck when my door opens but they adjust quickly to see Pearl and the rest of the gems there, with the Pizza family trailing behind. "Are you okay?!" she asks frantically.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" I ask non-chalantly, acting like I didn't just fly through the air, slam into the monster and am not upside down while only being held onto my seat via my seatbelt. (Buckle up kids. It may save your life.)

"Well, you did just crash." Garnet answers as she sends the creatures gem away.

"Oh, yeah, that."

"Do you need some help?" Amethyst asks.

"No no, I'm- Koh!" I let out a strangled yelp as my seatbelt snaps off and I'm suddenly laying on the roof of my truck. "I'm good." I say with strained breath.

"C'mon. Let's get you out." Steven says and grabs one of my arms. He and Jenny proceed to pull me out of the driver seat.

"Eh yeah. Thanks guys." I thank them as I stand.

"No problem."

"Sorry about your truck Marcus." Jenny says. With her saying that, I turn back around to see the damages to my vehicle. As I look all around it, to my surprise nothing seems to be majorly damaged.

"Actually, everything looks good. The grill didn't take any damage, nothing looks broken in the seat section. Besides cleaning this thing out of all the sand, I think my only concern is flipping this over… but think I got that covered." I say the last part while looking towards Garnet, who nods.

"Well, that's good." Kiki says. I notice Nanefua nudge Kofi a bit, like she wants him to say something.

"Thanks for your hospitality." He says. Nanefua then lightly punches his stomach.

"And?"

"And, for saving my family, you are all officially un-banned from my shop." Kofi announces. While I didn't care whether or not I was allowed in that place or not, I guess it's better to be allowed there than not.

"Aw, thank you so much, Kofi! We really appreciate it, right, guys?" Steven asks us.

"Okay, yes, thanks." Garnet bluntly replies barely a thanks.

"Aaaand?" He eggs us on again.

"What were we banned from again?" Pearl asks absentmindedly, completely forgetting why we hung out with the Pizza's in the first place.

I suppress a chuckle as Steven laughs nervously at Pearl's forgetfulness. Thankfully, Kofi doesn't take note. "With that out of the way, I think its time we head back home. Let's go family." Kofi says to his relatives as he turns back to start walking towards the city.

"Goodbye." Nanefua and the rest of her family walk away with the father as they send their goodbyes with waves. I wave back to them as they round the rocks to head back to the city.

"Now." I say and do a complete turn back to my truck. "Garnet, would you mind?" I gesture to my truck.

"No problem." She responds and cracks her knuckles. After grabbing a solid part of my vehicle, she easily flips my vehicle over in one move, not even breaking a sweat. A large dust of cloud kicks up as my truck lands back on all four and rocks a little. Taking one last look, my truck definitely doesn't have any major damage to it, a few dents here and there, some scratches but other than that and the possibility of a ton of sand getting into the engine, nothing seems worrisome.

"Thank you."

"You welcome."

"That was some slick move back there Marcus." Amethyst congratulates me as she slaps my back.

"Thanks. I figured we needed something big to force that monster against the spike. Your good Garnet but at that point we needed mass to counteract that creatures wind power." I say to the gem. She shrugs in agreement, not even going to argue. She knows, especially since the last time we faced that fish monster we both got sent flying to the Pizza's- "Oh!"

Remembering something, I jump into the passenger side of my truck and reach into the glove compartment. "Uhhh, what are you doing?" Steven asks me from outside.

"Grabbing something I think will help the Pizza's. Got it." Items in hand, I close the door and run to catch up with the family.

I run a bit, although much less than I would prefer because of the sand. _'I should run along the beach. I'm sure the sand would be a great obstacle for me to deal with when trying to get stronger.'_ Taking the note in my head for later, I see the Pizza's not far ahead of me. "Hey!" I call out to them.

All members of the family turn around to see me running up to them. "Hey Marcus! Did you need something?" Jenny asks me.

Regaining my composure, I talk, "I just wanted to say, I'm sorry for what me and Garnet did to your store. While you did give us leave to come and go into your store for saving your lives, the fact of the matter is that your store is still wrecked." The family glance at Kofi as he grimaces, no doubt a little angry at being reminded the situation they are in. "As a token of being sorry on behalf of my friends and I, here." I hand Kofi a small folded pile of cash.

"Son… its going to take a lot more than a few bills to…" he trails off as he takes note of just 'what type' of bills those few ones I gave him are.

"It may be a few bills but it's what kind they are that make all the difference." I can't help but say with a wide grin on my face. The grin gets wider as the rest of the family see the cash as well.

"How did-"

"Do you really wanna know?" I cut off the father with a pointed look. They are silent for a few seconds before I notice they are looking not at my face but a little lower. Looking down, I notice my right gun inside my jacket is slightly peeking out. I quickly grab both sides of my jacket and close it. "I have a permit for those." _'No I don't… but he doesn't need to know that.'_ "Besides, you saw what I have to deal with it." I mention the monster from before. He looks at the money a couple times before nods.

"This will help out greatly. Thank you." He thanks me and extends his hand. I go ahead and accept the handshake.

"No problem."

"Well, now that that is one situation I no longer have to worry about, I should call some people to start the repairs immediately. Thank you again." He says and continues to walk back to his show.

"Good luck with the repairs."

"Thank you young man." Nanefua says to me. "You didn't have to do that. We have enough money in our savings for the repairs."

"Yeah… but I did."

"You are a good man. Thank you again." She says and walks off with Kiki.

"Yeah… sure." I say and with a slight head tilt to the ground.

"Hey." In my moment, I almost forgot that Jenny was still here. "Look I… I haven't seen you before but you seems like a cool guy." She says and reaches into her pocket. She takes out a slip of paper and a pen from her back pocket. "If you ever wanna… you know, hang out, I usually hang out with some friends of mine. I'm sure you'd like them if you met them. They'll probably like you too, especially if you mention you hang out with Steven." She explains and finishes writing on the paper before handing it to me. "Give me a call sometime and we can hang." I look down at the number I have before looking up to see Jenny already walking away, waving back to me. "Later." she says as she walks to catch up to her family.

"Huh, cool." I say and pocket the number. With nothing else, I begin my trek back to the others. As well as thinking about which weapons I should check to see if their working. I don't make it far before I realize something.

"Wait, did I just get a girls phone number?"

 **Done. You know, now that I look at it, this one felt really tame compared to the majority of the others. There wasn't a major difference that happened in comparison to the show and I apologize if that's what you guys don't want. I hope you still like some things that happened though. The truck flying part was my fav. Anyway, next up is Rose's room and I feel like giving something good.**

 **But I can't say anything so sorry but you guys are screwed until I get it finished. Sorry about that. But you know my track record when it comes to posting chapters so you probably won't have to wait long.**

 **Maybe.**

 **Probably.**

 **Assuming nothing big comes up…**

 **Also if some of you have been wondering about why I've taken so long to upload this compared to my previous uploads, both college assignments and Battlefield 1 beta kept me occupied. Some of the guns given to us were really awesome to use and its some much fun to play with friends. The shotgun and a bolt action rifle with no scope are probably my most favorite weapons to use. As well as the P08 Luger as my side arm. I always feel the need to have the anti-tank grenade as my grenade for all my classes because if there's thing I don't like is being completely useless against a tank.**

 **Ah well, enough of my excuses, as long as the beta is up I'll be playing it and tests are starting to come up for some of my classes. Hopefully I won't be too bogged down but in any case, have fun reading.**


	12. 11 Ro- Jades Room

I've kinda been raking my head around a bit at how Jenny gave me her number. I've never been a social guy so the idea of a girl giving me her number is… well, weird to me. I don't know if she actually… expected me to be a suave guy to call her up and go out on a date, which actually freaks me out quite a bit, or just a friends to hang out.

I'm gonna go with the friend part because of things do happen, they grow from being friends. If I come out as wanting a date, that could screw things up.

Don't judge me, I'm a very paranoid person and I look at 'all' the possibilities of a situation. I tend to over think things but I prefer to be prepared than not at all.

"And he's done it!" Steven yells as he twirls himself around on his seat. "He's eaten five cans of creamed corn!"

"Herr." I say with mouthful of creamed corn.

"We have eaten four cans of creamed corn." He corrects himself.

I swallow my bite. "Thank you." However despite my tension with the number and all, I was still somehow roped into eating creamed corn for some reason.

The warp pad whirls to life and to Steven's elation the Crystal Gems walk out of it.

"Good afternoon, Steven. Marcus." Pearl greets us, giving a nod in my direction as well

"Guys, check this out!" Steven grabs the four empty corn cans to show to the gems.

"Stoo-man in the house! Whatcha got? Whatcha got?" Amethyst does this weird… cool guy type of speaking.

"I got four empty cans of Colonel Kernel's Classic Creamed Corn and an empty 5th one on the way!" he points to me. Immediately feeling nervous at having a spoonful of corn in my mouth, I give a small wave and turn away from them.

"Cool." Garnet in her ever neutral tone replies.

"Yeah, and on the back are five dollar coupons for mini-golf. We ate five cans, so we all can go together." Steven says.

"Wait, that's what we were doing?" I ask out load. Turning the can in my hand around, I see the $5 off coupon right there. _'Why didn't I ask him? Why didn't I question him? Oh right, its Steven and he has done no wrong to me.'_

"That's so thoughtful, Steven. Unfortunately though, uhh..." Pearl begins to say but then turns a bit nervously as she looks to Amethyst.

"We gotta go on a mission..." Amethyst says with a shrug.

"Right now? But you just got back?" I ask.

"Not again!" Steven cries out as he drops his cans. "But you guys promised we'd hang out!"

"A dangerous artifact has appeared in the Northern Hemisphere, we need to go retrieve it." Garnet informs us as she walks back to the warp pad.

"But mini-golf is so much fun! There's castles, and windmills, and I like it, and- oh look, look what I brought!" Steven cuts himself off and heads over the table and picks up something next to the golf clubs he brought. _'… You know, that should have been my first indicator as to what Steven wanted to do.'_ At first when he brought that over, I thought it was a massive blanket. Now, it's a massive pair of golf pants.

"I pulled out my dad's old clubs and also found a pair of his old golf pants." I shrug of his explanation and take another bite of corn. "They're a little big on me, but you can wear them, Garnet!"

"Grk!" I almost burst out laughing at the fat comment Steven just inadvertently called Garnet but the corn in my mouth gets lodge in my throat. I drop the spoon and can and grab my throat as the choking begins.

"Marcus!" Pearl exclaims loudly and moves over to me as I fall out of my chair. My vision begins to go blurry as the pieces of corn go down the wrong tube in my throat as Pearl grabs me from behind. In my panic, I wonder what she's doing but the sudden squeeze of my body means she's performing the Heimlich maneuver. She does it a couple times before a large chunk of corn flies out my mouth and lands in the sink. I breathe deeply for a few seconds, trying to get my bearings from the near death experience I probably could have had. Suddenly I grab Pearl by the shoulders and look into her eyes.

"Oh my god Pearl! Thank you! I thought I was a goner. My whole life flashed before my eyes!" I frantically exclaim. I look to the side, "It sucked."

Steven and Amethyst lightly chuckle, Garnet remains where she stands and Pearl checks me for anything that looks like I might be hurt. "You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm good." I reassure her. I stand up and walk over to the sink. Filling a glass of water, and letting it run a little so the corn will go down the drain, I take a large swig of water to ease myself. "Ah! Anyway, now that that's over, you guys get going. I think I'm gonna chill here for a bit. Maybe continue to check my guns." I haven't fully gone through my check up of my arsenal of weaponry yet. I have to get on that in case I do need something for an important mission.

"You sure you're okay?" Pearl asks again slightly worried.

"Yes Pearl. I'm fine. Thanks for saving me but you still need to go and save others." I wave to the warp pad where Amethyst and Garnet await.

"Alright then." She says and walks to her companions.

"See ya, you two!" Amethyst bids us farewell.

"We'll bring you something back, Steven!" Pearl calls out before they disappear.

"Whelp, I don't know about you Steven, but I'm done with corn and golf. I'm gonna check my Double barrel for dirt." I calmly say and go to grab the case for my weapon.

With a heavy sigh Steven falls back, most likely disappointed that none of his friends are going to play with him. "Well, you're not the only ones with a dangerous adventure to tackle." I faintly hear Steven say before I get started in dismantling my weapons.

* * *

Soon, yesterday came and gone and I can't help but take note that the gems aren't back yet as I stretch myself off the couch. _'Seriously. There not back yet. Hope the mission is going well.'_

"I can't lose! I am the greatest golfer in the Universssse!" At the very loud and enthusiastic voice, I look to the top to see Steven playing his game as he makes explosion sounds and laughing. "Alright! Secret ending!"

"Hey Steven." I say cooly. He looks to me and my eyes widen to see heavy bags forming under his eyes. "Dude, did you play all night to morning?" I ask him.

"It's morning?" he asks genuinely confused and looks out his window. I smile and shake my head, fondly remembering how I was just like that.

"Yes it is. Now I'm going to get changed and continue cleaning my stuff." I say and head to the restroom.

"Okay." I hear him reply while still looking back to his game.

A short while later, I emerge from the restroom fit, ready to work and I proceed to work on my AK47 this time. I got the classic styled AK for my arsenal. The classic one with the wood handles and such. The one I have also comes with a 75 round drum magazine, which I need to check as well to make sure the feed system isn't clogged. I just place my gun and tools on the counter when the warp pad activates.

"Hey, Steven! Marcus! We're baaaack!" I look up to see the gems are back with Pearl announcing their presence.

"Hey." Steven nonchalantly calls from his game place.

"Welcome back. I assume everything went well?" I ask.

"It did." Garnet says as she hefts a massive brown and gold colored object.

"What's that?"

"The wailing stone!" Amethyst says happily and runs up to where is still playing his game. "HEY STEVEN. Wanna hear about where we've been?" she asks him really closely.

' _They'll tell me later.'_ I think and look at my AK from all sides to see if there's anything obvious from the outside.

"So what's this one?" I turn to Pearl who takes a seat next to me to see my weapon as well. I haven't shown all of my weapons to the gems so occasionally when I pull out something new, Pearl, and sometimes the others, are interested to hear it.

"This…" I say as I stand my gun up on the butt, "Is the Kalashnikov. Also known as Kalash in Russian slang terms, but most of all and the most widely known as the AK-47. A selective-fire, gas-operated assault rifle originally made in the Soviet Union in 1949 by a Russian man named Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov." I rack the bolt back, sending the round it had chambered flying out towards my audience, which I quickly catch before it hits her and show the round to her. "Unlike most of my firearms, this weapon is chambered with a slightly bigger round than the 5.56 by 45mm NATO rounds I use in most of my long arm weapons. This round is a 7.62 by 39mm round, made in 1944 and still used to this day, and it ensures that this weapon deals massive damage despite being widely known as a cheap cost-effective weapon." I place the round down and hold the gun out so she can examine it more. "This weapon is what most people would typically associate it with terrorist factions across the world because of its cheap cost to make and how it's famous for being a very reliable weapon to this day. You could use this thing in the harshest of conditions and still be able to use it to an effective degree. Rain, sleet, snow, mud, desert, this thing is so good it can go through nearly any type of environment and hazard you could think of and still work. There have even been cases where versions of this gun that was originally made in the 1950's that could still be used to this day. It is a very reliable, very powerful, modifiable and beautiful gun to have in ones arsenal." I finish my long explanation of the weapon and place it down on the table.

Pearl stares at me for a long while at how much information I just dropped on her. "Uhhhh…?"

"I used to know a guy who was a massive fanatic with guns. His personal favorite was the AK." I calmly explain to her with a straight face.

"Riiiiight." She says a little uneasily, more than likely not expecting such a long and extensive explanation about this gun right off the bat.

"Yep." I say and continue to look at it for wear. "Right now I'm checking it for any debris to make sure that it works in tip top shape the next time I use it. Even though it has the reputation for being a very reliable gun, I don't want to take any chances in this thing jamming even for a second when I need it most." I explain to her. _'So far I've checked the majority of the weapon, nothing along the barrel looks broke or cracked, the bolt receiver looks good, the gas system doesn't look to have any holes…'_

"What about there?"

I look to where Pearl points at to see just a small clump of dust forming where the trigger meets the receiver. "Oh god. Thanks." I thank her and grab a screwdriver to scrap the stuff off.

"Your welcome." She says with a smile.

"Now I carefully just…" I trail off as I carefully bring screwdriver close to the offending piece of debris.

*RREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

*BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!*

You know when you work on dangerous equipment; you make sure it doesn't go off when you're working on it. Naturally, either I got too comfortable with how peaceful things tend to be when inside the house, or I'm getting rusty, but I should have set the safety, disassembled the gun, or for god's sake TAKE OUT THE FUCKING AMMO… but I didn't and whatever infernal device was making that awful noise, I jerked and my screwdriver got lodged into the triggers hole, setting it to fire… on automatic… with a 75-round drum magazine.

The weapon flies off the table from the force of the first shot and the following shots after because without a body to hold the weapon, it fly's to the floor but continues to shoot. Immediately diving off my stool, I land on the gun and proceed to wrestle with it to get it under control. I manage to get a hold of the weapon but the screwdriver handle broke off, keeping the metal part lodged against the trigger and forcing it to keep firing, preventing me from pulling it out.

When you fire a weapon on full auto, unless you have a really good grip on it, you're strong, the control is manageable, and you really know what you're doing, then you can keep the trigger held to really make use of full auto. Unfortunately, in the panic you're in like me right now, and that I'm still trying to get my physique up, I don't have control. I hold the weapon as hard as I can against me to control this beast but it's completely all over the place. Fortunately I have the decency and sense to keep it aimed at the ceiling to absolutely avoid the others from getting hit. After I'm pretty sure 40-rounds are gone, I force my hand against the bolt carrier to force the weapon to stop firing. It works but I strain to hold the weapon firm and prevent the thing from tearing off my hand to continue firing. Quickly looking around for something to work, I hit the mag release and tear off the magazine with my foot. Without its supply of ammo, I let go.

*BANG*

Unfortunately, I forgot a round was still chambered in it. With the loud noises gone, I lay on the ground exhausted from the exertion of preventing my rogue gun from killing anyone. After a quick look around, I see no one has gotten hit and Pearl is standing next to the Wailing Stone. If I had to guess that was what caused the screeching noise that startled the hell out of me. "Everyone okay?" I ask from my position on the ground.

"I'm fine." Garnet reassures me.

"I'm good here." Amethyst says.

"So am I." Pearl says as well, although she's giving a slight glare in Amethysts direction. _'Looks like I know who activated that thing.'_ My train of thought starts to turn really worrisome when I don't hear a fourth voice acknowledge he's alright.

"Steven?" I throw my gun to the side and move over to him. "You alright?" To my assurance, he looks fine, just frozen in place staring at his TV… with a hole in the center of the screen. "Oh."

"THAT WAS THE SECRET ENDING!" He yells and flops onto his back against his chair. "Now I have to replay the final dungeon all over again! It's not fair! I can't go mini-golfing, I can't play my game, I can't stop going into the bathroom because I ate all that Creamed Corn, so much Corn..." He rants. His mention of the corn made me wince a little. He ate the majority of the corn in the cans and all so I can only imagine just how much that corn messed him up. I was probably either really engrossed in tinkering with my weapons or asleep when Steven went to the restrooms because I don't remember seeing him go. "*sigh* I just wish I had a place for myself." I start to feel bad that I basically destroyed his TV and ruined his chance at seeing that secret ending. I can understand with him when it comes to playing games and finding secret cut scenes that you can only see if you do something specific, most often it's a time consuming specific thing. My attention however is diverted to Steven's gem as it starts glowing. "Huh? My gem!" He exclaims in surprise as he lifts his shirt to reveal it to us.

Pearl and Amethyst start to move towards Steven while Garnet and I look up from the level below. A whirring noise behind us shifts our attention to the temple door, where the gem symbol for Steven's mother, Rose, starts glowing.

"Rose's door. Steven, your gem is opening your mother's room...!" Pearl trails off as the door to the temple begins to open.

"Woah... !" Steven says in awe and proceed to walk to the door.

"Steven, wait!"

"Steven, wait!"

"Steven, don't go in there!" The gems all warn Steven about going into the room while I remain indifferent. I'm not sure what this situation means and all but I tense myself, widening my stance a little so I can be ready to help if something suddenly requires my intervention.

"It's never about what I wanna do, is it?" Steven yells to the gems as he turns to them. "Well now we have a place where I'm going and YOU CAN'T COME!" He finishes and runs to the door.

"STEVEN!" All three of them call out to him.

"Wait!" I yell and sprint after him to the door.

"YES!" I hear him yell just as the door closes and I slam into it. I quickly search the door for any means for me to open it, hell even a crack so I can wedge the door open with my knife, but there's nothing.

"Damnit!" I curse and slam both my hands onto the door now that it returned to normal. "How do we open?" I ask the gems.

"We can't."

"What do you mean you can't?" I turn back to Garnet for explanation.

"The temple is comprised of several separate rooms, each one only allowing access to a specific gem. We all have our own rooms that will only open if we want them to. Rose has one to but since Steven inherited her gem…" Garnet's explanation trails off but by this point I get what she means.

With a heavy sigh, I place my hands back on the door. "Just one problem after another." I grumble.

A bright light begins to shine on my face. I look up to hopefully see if Rose's symbol is glowing but to my disappointment, is not. To my surprise, an entirely new symbol appears right in the middle of all the other gem symbols.

A green gem symbol.

Looking to my shoulder, my heart starts to beat a bit more rapidly as I find the symbol is an exact match to mine. I also find that the symbol is getting brighter and brighter on the door and I can't move my hands.

"Uhhhh, guys?" I call out uneasily to them, not sure what's going on myself. Through my peripheral, they are just as surprised as I am. The glowing starts to encompass my arms and work up to my shoulders. Before I can call out for help, the entire door explodes into a clear white light, blinding me before I'm suddenly sucked it. "Whoa!"

"MARCUS!" I hear three voices call out to me before I lose consciousness.

* * *

"GAH!" I yelp as I wake up. I quickly take out one of my Beretta's and do an immediate scan of my surrounding. I find nothing around me.

Absolutely nothing.

The entire area is completely covered in pure whiteness from the ground, the distance to the ceiling. I start to feel a little woozy at seeing the complete sea of white blanket my entire vision before I bring my hands close to my face, bringing in more color to field of view. Attentively, I take a few steps to make sure everything seems stable and it does. I have to constantly reassure myself though that I'm not gonna fall because that's what it feels like to me. _'Feels like I'm walking on clouds.'_

"Hello?" I call out. To my dismay, I get a fairly big echo in return. "Guys?" I call out; just hoping the others can somehow hear me. Unfortunately I'm still met with echoing silence as I remember what Garnet said.

" _The temple is comprised of several separate rooms, each one only allowing access to a specific gem."_

"Fuck. Then that means I somehow activated this room." I scratch my head as I begin to think of ways on how to get out. "Alright alright, if I somehow got in, then maybe I can-"

"Marcus."

I immediately train my gun on the person's voice. My sights fall onto a woman.

A green… gem woman.

My gun falls to my side as I take in the woman's features. Off the bat, she has a beautiful but fierce looking face. She has green eyes, long dark green hair that go down to the base of her spine, a sleeveless viridian colored tunic similar to pearls but without a sash, has a cross of swords overlapping a shield logo that's colored a darker shade of green than her shirt, tight forest green pants that go down past her knees, deep dark green combat boots, a very light green skin complexion, a few inches taller than me and her physique puts mine to shame. The tight pants and sleeveless clothing outline her slightly muscled structured. Not body-builder type but enough to make me not want to get into any fights with her at first glance.

I have sneaking suspicion who this is but-

"My son." She calmly says.

My breath catches in my throat as I take in the ramifications of what I'm seeing. Who I'm meeting. If the gems on her shoulders were one thing, what she said sealed it.

"M-mm-mom?" I ask, my voice breaking a little as my gun clatters to the floor.

"Marcus," she says again, this time a little more sadly. "My son. Oh how I wish I could see you now." My face takes the look of one of confusion at her words. "I imagine you're confused as to what I mean. As much as I would have loved to meet you, that… wasn't possible. So… I decided to make this, a recording basically I left with Rose and the temple so you could get some direct answers should you need them." My spirits drain a bit as I am not talking to actually my mother, but just a recording. "I had this set up so that the second you touch the temple's doors, you would be forced into the room so I could speak to you. Sorry about the… knocking out thing but I couldn't turn that off. Sorry. Hehehe." She lightly chuckles. I can't help but smiles as well at the light heartedness she's trying to bring to the situation. _'Even when you're gone, you make me smile… like mother should.'_

"In any case, there are some things I didn't… talk about with your father." I wince at the mention of him but continue to listen. "About what I did in the Gem war basically. I told him what I was, who I am and showed him some of my powers but I never really showed him, everything." She throws her hands out to the side and the entire white landscape shifts into multiple images and scenarios, more than I can possibly count or barely comprehend. "But here… I can show you." She drops her arms and everything stops in some sort of darkened hallway. "I was a… special operative for Rose Quartz." She says as she walks down the dark hallway where I have to catch up.

"Spec Ops?" I ask out loud. I know she won't answer but the idea that my mom was some secret special operative for the rebel army… damn that's actually pretty cool. I know my dad was military but never found out which branch. "I was well versed in many different means to… cripple our enemies." She pauses to come up with the word. We come upon a large door with a couple of figures guarding it. Their forms were blurry so I could make out exactly what they were but they were massive, twice my mother's height easy.

"No matter the size of my enemies…" she begins to say before the figures look in one direction. Before I or they could see anything, something darts past them, crouched low to the ground. A second later, the figures 'poof' into dust, their gems falling to the ground. The figure stands up and to my surprise, it's my mother, albeit a bit… younger and clutching her my swo- her swords and holding a satchel. She looks left and right before typing in a key code lock on the door. "How secure…" she types in a few more numbers in a language I don't understand before she pumps her fist in victory and the door open. We walk in after her younger self to see some kind of generator like device inside with supports keeping it in place from the walls beside it.

"Or massive my target is…" Young mom gives a smirk before taking off towards the machine, easily running up along it a fair bit before kicking off before she loses momentum and grabs onto a bar. To my udder and complete amazement, and a bit jealousy, she starts to swing herself back and forth before sending herself high into the air with a twirl and hooking the next bar… with her feet?! This doesn't stop her momentum as she continues swinging, twirling, spinning her way up along the generator by the bars with movement I have never seen before. The only people I can hope to compare at the level of acrobatics and gymnastics my mother is implementing are Olympic level athletes. She finally lands on a bar on her two feet and walks like its nothing towards a particularly bright spot on the generator. She crouches down, opens her satchel and takes out a device before planting it on the spot. She presses the button and I hear the unmistakable tell-tale sounds of a countdown timer. I expect her to start swinging her way down but she simply walks off the pole, immediately beginning her descent to the ground at a very uncomfortable speed and height. My breath hitches and the different scenarios begin to play at what happens when she hits the ground. None of them happen however as she lands hard on the ground, crouched on one knee and hand placed to the ground. A small crater cracks the floor she's on and I feel a little worried she broke her legs before she simply stands, brushes her shirt and calmly walks to the door.

"I always complete my objective." My present mother says. Suddenly the door opens and more figures begin to walk in. Young mom rolls into a shadowy corner and stays in it for a few seconds before she disappears before my very eyes. I look around to see if I can find her but I can't. The figures can't find her either, it looks like their more preoccupied with the machine itself. When all of them walk over to the tampered machine, my mother darts out of the shadows against the wall behind them and out the door just as it closes.

"Always." She says again and we are thrust outside into some snowy area. After a quick look around, I find a very tall and big structure nearby. Before I can think of anything else, it explodes in a massive explosion.

I bring my arms up to protect myself from the explosion but I don't feel anything against me. Come to think of it, I don't feel the snow on me either. I look back up to the blown up structure and see if I can find my mom. All I see is fire lapping up the entire place with no sign of anyone. However when I turn to my mom, she's staring at the ground. Following her gaze, I see a noticeable bulge of snow begin to move past us and away from the burning structure. A few seconds later, my young mom bursts out of the snow and shakes herself free of snow. Pulling herself out of it, she gives off a low whistle at her handiwork and proceeds to walk off into the snow.

"I wasn't born a… normal gem." My present mom says a little sadly. The landscape around us turns darker and more somber. "I assume you, or hope at this point, you know about fusions." I nod, despite knowing she can't see me. "Some gems from homeworld thought it would make better shock troopers if they started making soldiers as powerful without the aid of fusion. I was that prototype." She says and I can feel the mood begin to deepen. "I don't know if I was made from two gems and their existence was simply wiped, or if I'm a forced fusion stuck permanently. That's why I… we, have two gems."

' _So that's how it is, my mother was no normal gem. She was a prototype for a new breed of troopers for homeworld to use in combat.'_

"For awhile, I just did my job. Following orders…" Images pop up of her taking orders from more blurred figures, some small, some big, some massive. "Disciplined when I failed…" The next images make my eyes narrow, my fists clench as she gets punched and kicked a couple times. "Ignored when I succeeded." This time the images look to be giving her 'thanks' or a 'good job' but wave her off. She looks down in sadness as her superiors turn away. "That all changed however when I met Rose Quartz." She says with more happiness in her voice. The next scene is her beaten on the ground, green blood running down the corner of her mouth, bruises lining her body, her swords smashed and a tall pink figure standing over her. From the pictures I've seen, the large figure is Rose Quartz, Steven Universes mother. Rose extends a hand to my mom with a smile, while she only recoils in fear, thinking she's going to be smashed. "I had failed to protect a key figure to Blue Diamonds army, a gem by the name of Sapphire, and I was thrown away because of my failure." My mom says somberly. Rose looks confused for a second before she kneels close to my young mom. "They decided to leave me to planets wildlife, or worse, the rebels. They figured that they would take the chance capture me, torture me for info, or smash me to make a statement. The diamonds, homeworlds leaders, decided that since I was such a failure, they worked to try and create even better soldiers than I was." I see a smile begin to form on my mom's face as the young version of her realizes that she's not being attacked. She looks to the smiling face of Rose before carefully extending a hand to Roses offered one. The scene freezes as both their hands firmly grasp each other. "What the homeworld gems didn't realize, was that some among the rebels… actually cared for others."

Everything glows white again before the scene begins to change again. "When I was first created, I always thought I was just a weapon, an expendable soldier used in the army to fight. Rose… saw more than that in me." Several more still images appear of my mom and Rose talking, laughing… learning. "However even though I was accepted by her, we both knew the others of her army wouldn't have. I… hurt… too many to even be considered to be accepted by them. For awhile, I just lived in isolation, only known my Rose that I was alive, until I decided enough was enough and wanted to help." She says trying to get the words out. It's obvious that all this is still a little trying for her, having to relive all the pain she caused to others and what was caused to her. The next scene shows my mother talking to Rose firmly with tears forming in her eyes while Rose looks on impassively. "I was thrown away like nothing by the diamonds and it was Rose who comforted me when I was at my lowest. Her kindness gave me a reason to live and I wanted to make sure that all that she worked for was not going to be in vain. I may have been born to fight but at that point, I wanted to fight for someone I 'wanted' to fight for."

"Thought you'd never ask." The new voice cuts through us and it takes me a moment to realize it was Rose with a smile on her face. My young mom looks ecstatic that she's going to help before Rose places a hand on her shoulder. "But first, let's teach you some new tricks."

"From that point on, all I was at first was just a hardened fighter, that's it. Just to fight, hit, get hit and destroy my target. Rose however… taught me to be even more." More images appear of my mom being more graceful with her swords skills, going through unarmed training, acrobatics and athletics training, being fluent with projectile weapons such as bows and crossbows, heck she even uses some slings a couple times. The next images that appear however are of my mom putting those skills to use in her objectives. "Rose is a very resourceful woman when it came to planning, from teaching me to fight properly, to thinking outside the box, and subterfuge." The images next show my mom leading her enemies into traps, using their own skills, equipment and sometimes size against them, as well as using specific points on their body's against them like going for the knees or disabling their arms. Scenes float by as my mom hacks advanced computer terminals, blows up key infrastructures, fights relentlessly against countless enemies that outnumber her 10 to 1 but all the while… she's smiling. Remembering back to the time when she was a homeworld soldier, she just had a somber neutral look to her. _'Just a tool. That's all she was to them… that's what she thought too.'_ Now looking at the images, she's more carefree and outgoing in her missions, taking pleasure in fighting for a worthy cause for worthy people.

"Rose Quartz saw me as more than just a tool, more than just a weapon. She saw me as… a friend." A picture comes up of them hugging. "She wanted to finally introduce me to the others, especially to a certain Pearl she cared deeply about, but I told her no. The reason I was so good at my job was because I was shrouded in mystery by everyone but her. I know she meant well but I wanted to make sure we won before I would even hope to relax." She begins to chuckle and lets out a happy sigh, "Naturally, she agreed but made it so for quite a while that would never hear the end of it. Social life and mingling, or working with others, was never my strong suit."

"Huh, guess that's something I picked up." I say.

"Make no mistake Marcus, I was a powerful warrior and because of what I was, information retention, as well as adaptability, were my strong points. Knowing who I was facing, what their weaknesses were, where I was going all contributed to my success and near perfect record with the Crystal gems. Adapting to a situation made me unpredictable to my enemies and when it came to how something worked, it clicked into my head, *Snap* just like that. Interpreting how some objects were was a gift I had as well and I was able to take apart things and put them together with ease, even turning them into things no one thought of before." "After the war ended, I wanted to do things myself for once and opted to travel alone. Rose was disappointed but supported me none the less." She smiles. "I was… lost for awhile, but with a great friend like Rose, I found myself." Everything turns white.

"Marcus." I move in front of her so it looks like she's talking to me. "I don't know how life will treat you considering who you are, but if you're my and your fathers son, then you'll do great, I'm sure of it." My head lowers at the mention of my father again. "I still wish I could meet you but, having you… knowing I'll be bringing this life into this beautiful world…" she says as she rubs her stomach. Not gonna lie, feels a little freaky at seeing the prospect that I'm in there. "It feels good son. And seeing as how you're here listening to my tale, it wasn't in vain." She takes a moment to compose herself after the emotional roller coaster she just went through. "Anyhow, there really isn't anything else I can come up with right now. All I can say now is… I love you."

Emotions start to well up inside me. The idea that my mom… loves me, is here and… it's hard to put into words.

"Honestly I never thought to even want kids but, it just felt… right after all that fighting. Whoever you are, however you are… I'm sure its someone I would be proud of."

My elated emotions take a down turn as I remember everything I did before I met the gems. All the deceitful and messed up things I did. _'I'm sure you wouldn't be proud of what I did if you were her. However if you were here, maybe dad wouldn't-'_ My thoughts don't dare finish.

"I think I've given you enough information Marcus. I hope you met Rose and the rest of the Crystal gems. Rose is a great person to meet, the others… well I don't know. I never met them. The door is open." She waves a hand to the side and a bright glowing door appears. "While you were living, I'm sure at some point you noticed some things about yourself, maybe a power here and there or knowing stuff you didn't know before. Well, when you leave here, all the info I learned about homeworld, about technology, how to adapt, how to properly fight, will be unlocked within you. That is to say you won't get everything right off the bat. It just means you'll be able to learn things a lot quicker, some things may click when you find them, and be able to understand how they work a bit better. Your powers may also manifest better so get ready to practice." She informs me. With the knowledge of so much stuff suddenly flooding me, hopefully I can handle it all. "Good luck out there my son. Say hi to your dad for me."

Tears begin to well up on my eyes as I clench both my eye lids shut and my fists tightly. _'She wants me to… but I can't… I…'_ I can barely form coherent thoughts as all the memories begin to flood me. How my mom is now, how she seemed, what she went through… I want to meet her. I really do.

"M-mom… I know you can't hear me. I know you aren't listening… I know this I just a... stupid recording but… you just… relieved my mind of so… so… so much!" I start to crack, tears starting to stream down my face as my emotions starting to pierce through my wall I've built up for so long. "Dad… dad never told me anything! He loved you. Loved you so much that… he… hated that you gave yourself up… for me. I can't say hi to him. We… we just… oh god!" I break and softly sniffle, tears running down harder as I try to get myself under control enough to speak. "I… I did… bad things while I was alone. Things you… most likely wouldn't be proud of. I just… I wish you were here… I was lost for so long… I didn't know who you were for… for the longest time. You… may have wanted to be here but… this," I gesture to all around me as her figure just continues to stand there. "This… gave me so much closure." I say in exasperation. "I don't know… what the future will hold for me… for the Crystal Gems… but, if when I leave here… I gain and understanding of my powers… that will help… more than you'll know." I rub my eyes clear of my tears and face her with a clear look of determination, "I won't let my past determine my future. Hell followed me and I followed it because I was alone. Now…" I trail off as a smile forms on my lips at my most recent memories: The Crystal Gems. Finding out I wasn't alone was a massive shock to say the least but after talking to them, understanding them, getting to know them so much, things just opened up and calmed me down. "I met the gems… their awesome to say the least. Helpful to me in so many ways. Sorry to say but… Rose isn't around anymore. She's in the same boat as you now. She has a kid. His name is Steven… good kid. Lots of potential… a lot more than I could of used. I'm going to make sure he doesn't end up like me. I won't let anything bad happen to him… I swear it mom." I say finally.

I stand there for a few more seconds, unsure of what to do next. Without thinking, I hit her with a tight hug. She remains rooted to her spot and doesn't return the hug… but it's as close as I can get at this point so I'll take it. After hugging for a few more second, I let go. "Thank you mom… for your sacrifice. I won't let you down." I grab my gun I dropped on the ground earlier, holster it and walk over to the door and stand in front of it, preparing myself to move on. "Goodbye mom. Wherever you've gone… good luck." I say as I turn back to her. With a deep breath, I step through the bright light.

"Good luck my son."

* * *

"Oof!" Steven lands hard against the red gem Garnet. He lets out a loud gasp at seeing a familiar face that wasn't controlled by a crazy. "GARNET!" Steven yells loudly. He proceeds to bite Garnet's arm as a means to know if whether or not the gems around him are real or not.

"Ow." Garnet simply says, not at all overly perturbed at being bitten by the kid.

Steven gasps in slight happiness, realizing that the figures around him aren't fake. "You're not clouds!"

"Alright, Steven!" Amethyst however takes Steven's example a little too far and bites Pearl's arm for only one reason: Because someone else was doing it.

"AGHUUHH!" Pearl lets out a cry of anguish at being bitten so suddenly.

"Guys, it was awful! I was trapped in a messed up version of Beach City. Everyone was acting super weird and..." Steven recounts his tale and experience of being inside his mother's room.

"Rose's room built the whole town?!" Amethyst exclaims loudly.

"IT CAN'T HANDLE A TASK LIKE THAT!" Pearl exclaims even louder, although in her panic, she hits Amethyst in the face with her elbow. "Thank goodness you're okay!"

"I'm sorry I got mad, guys. I get it now. Things can't always go exactly how I want." Steven concedes.

"Oh Steven, we're sorry, too." Pearl apologizes to the kid for their earlier actions.

"Mm-hmm." Amethyst agrees as well.

"But now's still not the time for that I'm afraid." Garnet says as she stands up, heading for the door.

"What do you mean?" He asks the tall gem. HE looks around as he notices someone else isn't there ot greet him. "Where's Marcus?"

"Well, that's the thing Steven. After you went into your mother's room, Marcus tried to go in after you but the door closed before he could. However…" Pearl trails off in her explanation as she tries to make sense of what happened.

"The temple door started to do some weird light show thing. Something we've never seen before." Amethyst says.

"We were hoping he somehow went with you… but since he's not here with you. I'm afraid that's out of the equation." Garnet says.

"Well what are we supposed to do? You guys live in the temple right? Can't you just, look for him in there?" He proposes.

"It's not that simple Steven. We tried looking while you were gone but nothing came up. We have no idea if… he…" Pearls explanation trails off as the temple door lights up again. Everyone stares in at the massive bright light that emanates from the door. At first its blinding but soon darkness starts to form in the middle of it. The darkness grows more and more until a body takes shape. Happiness starts to form on all their faces at seeing their friend safe and sound but upon close inspection, Marcus's face doesn't look as good. As soon as he steps out of the door and the light fades, he collapses onto his knees and grabs his head.

"Marcus!"

* * *

Equations. Images. Numbers. Biology. Symbols. Schematics.

All these things are forced into my mind. Equations to some of the most complex math problems, images of fights, scenarios and situations show me what can or can't happen in some areas, what I should or shouldn't do; coding and algorithms flow easily through my mind to easily crack some of the most hardened security firewalls, to make something massive happen from something so simple and easy to use; how the body works, the nerves, veins, artery's, when a body expires, how long it takes; symbols of something I've never seen before in a language I've never heard of; and schematics of weapons, vehicles, terminals, buildings and power from small to very large, useful but possibly destructive as well.

' _So much info… so much… it hurts…I can't-'_

"Marcus?"

All my thoughts stop as the voice speaks. Letting go of my head, I look up to see Pearl looking at me worriedly, as does Steven, Garnet and Amethyst. _'My friends…'_

"Are you alright?" she asks me.

Slowly, I stand up and walk past them towards the kitchen with a straight face, where my gun lies. Finding it on the floor, I pick it up and the magazine, placing them both on the counter. Without a word, I pull out the jammed screwdriver easily and make sure nothing is broken.

Nothing is so I set the weapons safety. Grabbing the drum magazine, I pull out the remaining rounds left in it. All 17 rounds left.

As I slowly take the bullets, I feel the others stare at me as wetness begins to form under my eyes again as I remember everything that happened in the last hour. The revelation, my family's history, the powers I could have… everything. Interesting enough though, some info feels… gone. Like I know it's there and it's something I went through but I just can't remember it. Maybe some of it got pushed to make room for the new info but it's hard to tell.

As I place the last bullet in a neat line, standing up, on the table, I place the magazine down as well. With nothing else in my hands, I slowly get off the stool I'm sitting on and aim myself towards them. Their gasps of surprise are not lost to me at how I look. It's not often I've shown a lot of emotion and now…

"Guys…" My words make them hang onto what I have to say, no doubt wondering what it is I went through.

"I met my mom."

 **Wow. This went a lot quicker then I had anticipated. Not the length of the plotline I mean. What I meant is just how quickly I got this chapter out. Maybe it's because I didn't follow as much of the dialogue of the story as before.**

 **Either way, this was something I was definitely looking forward to writing. Hopefully the shrouded mystery behind Marcus's mother has satisfied you all and shown just the potential he could have in the future.**

 **I hope the story isn't going too fast for everyone. As I've said before, I really want to get to the later parts of the show so if it does, apologies but I just do. Some of you even mentioned how they wonder how things will get when Marcus meets other gems like Jasper and Bismuth. I can't wait for it too.**

 **Also I've been throwing ideas around for another story for me to write eventually. Maybe a 'My Life as a Teenage Robot' OC fic. That show hasn't gotten as much love as I would have liked and I hadn't found a decent OC story to go along that series. I figured… if I could make this and get so much popularity for it compared to what I thought I could get, maybe I can make something half-decent for that. It's another idea I've had for almost as long as this story as well, you know. And when I mean the popularity, I meant it. Like seriously, a few dozen of you guys have already faved, followed, and reviewed this story, not to mention that by the time I post this, this story garnered over 4,600 views.**

 **That's the most I've ever gotten in any story guys, thank you again. With that said, I get ready for a psychology test and an essay due in a couple days, at the same time, so I'll bid you guys farewell.**

 **Until next time and have fun reading.**


	13. 12 Coach Steven

To say the gems were surprised was an understatement. To say that my mother was a secret special operative for Rose in the gem war really got their attentions. Of course, being the right hand of Rose, Pearl evidently dismissed the whole thing but the way how I've been acting kinda shot that idea down. Not to mention Garnet actually backed me up.

* * *

" _Now I remember her." Garnet says._

" _When we first met, you said you had an idea but nothing conclusive, right?" I ask her. She nods._

" _Yes. While Rose and your mom didn't want anyone to find out about her identity or how she even existed, I merely met her very briefly and that was only because I walked in on them. Your mom kinda freaked out and we fought a bit but Rose managed to calm us down. I never met her, or found out who exactly your mom was Marcus but if Rose trusted her, then I did as well. She also swore me to secrecy about her identity or that she existed so that's probably why I barely remember her. It was just one moment and I was told to forget about her entirely." Garnet explains. She looks to me. "I'm sorry I couldn't remember sooner."_

 _I wave her off. "It's fine. I found out eventually and even if you did remember, what info could you have provided for me. That probably would have left me scratching my head even more than I already was. It's all good." I reassure._

" _I'm glad."_

" _Question?"_

" _Yes, Steven?"_

" _Why do I have to not look directly at what you are doing?" I smile as I put down plasma torch I am using._

* * *

After I came back to everyone and told them what I went through, then Steven told me what he went through in his mothers room, I got to work on retrofitting my gear coming up with new weapons for me to make. One such prototype I wanted to work on was making my own set of IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices). Some of the things we fought were starting to get bigger and badder so I need things to really deal damage on the fly. I started by grabbing a bunch of electronic devices, tools and other miscellaneous items for what they have in them, followed by a bunch of disposable cell phones so I could remotely trigger the bombs using my phone. I'll have to eventually switch to use the natural hand trigger deal but for right now it's going to be a rush job. That's why I told Steven to not look directly at my work because more often than not I'm going to be using that generates a lot of heat and a lot of light, like those welding tools you sometimes see welders use so while fun to look at, they can damage a person's retinas. I've already gotten some goggles for me to use and I'm pretty sure the gems don't need to worry about burning anything.

The warp pad deactivates and I dive forward, rolling on the ground once before I bring my AK up to bear and scan the immediate area around us. "Clear."

"Honestly Marcus. You don't have to do that." Pearl says to me as she and the others step off the warp pad.

"Can't be too careful. You never know when a hostile is lurking around the next corner and there is a delay for when we actually come out of the warp pad and it deactivates. That can give an enemy ample time to surprise." I calmly explain to her on why I'm so jumpy. Both figuratively and literally.

"You inherited your mothers paranoia, didn't you?" Garnet asks as she walks past me, patting my shoulder along the way.

"Yep… and a little of my dad too." I answer and walk with her to our objective. Ever since I did come out of the room, true my intelligence did take a massive increase to what I know but my senses all took a leap as well making me start to look at things and the environment I know of in an entirely new light, where enemies could hide, vantage points, exploitable locations and so forth.

"Woah! What magical place of mystery is this?" Steven's surprise of the place we are at pushes me from my thoughts and I take a gaze as well. The whole place is some massive building like structure with a ton of different pillars and columns to keep it stable.

"Well-" Amethyst begins to explain but gets cut off by a particularly excited Pearl

"Oh, I'm so glad you asked! This was once a communication hub for Gem-kind." She says as she walks over to one of the pillars. "But lately, it's begun transmitting bursts of electromagnetic interference!"

' _Damn, a communication hub. You know, maybe I can take a crack at looking at it. Maybe I can turn it into-'_ "Wait, electromagnetic interference?" I ask.

"Whazzat mean?" I hear Steven ask Garnet.

"It's hurting television." She bluntly says it in terms that he would understand.

"Noooooooo!" Evidently it worked from the sound his cries. "I'll save you television! Ha-yah!" Steven tries to damage one of the pillars but fails.

Looking back to the structure, I think. _'If this thing is screwing with the broadcasting of TV, while I'm angry about it, I bet I could probably come up with a way to up the strength of it while focusing it to another type of interference… like phones.'_

"Amethyst, we could be here all day taking out these pillars individually." Pearls scolding of the purple hyper gem pushes me from my thoughts.

"Ugh, I hate it when you're right. You get this look on your face..." Amethyst begins to say but turns a bt more annoyed at seeing the cute face Pearl's making. "Yeah, that's the one."

"She's right though." I say out loud while still looking at the pillars. "Your brute strength alone won't cut it here Amethyst. Man if I had finished working on my IED's, I could have used them here. Place one right there, one over there, that can topple over…" I trail off as images of what I'm saying start to flash across my eyes.

"And since we don't have Marcus's prototypes, what we need is a well thought out plan-" Pearl begins to say as her gem starts to glow to probably project a hologram.

"No." Garnets sudden interruption actually surprises me a little as well as everyone else. "What we need is Sugilite."

' _Sugilite?'_ I think.

She turns to Amethyst, "Amethyst, fuse with me."

"WHAAAT?!" Both gems say loudly but with very different moods on the subject. Amethyst screams in excitement while Pearl looks like she's confused and angry.

"Yeah! Let's mash it up! Bigger, badder, better! Ohohohohoho!" A very overenthusiastic Amethyst says she twirls around.

"Hold your horses!" Steven stops all their movement to get his bearings on what they're going to do. "Are... you guys going to become a Gem Fusion?" He asks excitedly. Amethyst replies with an excited scream, causing her and Steven to scream in excitement.

"WAIT!" Pearl stops all the excitement. I'm not exactly as enthusiastic about fusion as Steven and Amethyst are but if its anything like Opal, I figured it could be something good, but the way how Pearl looks makes me uneasy. "Garnet, think about this. You and Amethyst can be a little... eheh... unstable when your personalities combine. We need to be careful! Fuse with me, instead."

"And that sealed my uneasiness." I mutter as I sling my rifle on my back.

"We don't need to be careful. We just need to be huge." Garnet says. I don't know if she meant to try to reassure Pearl with her statement but it looks like it didn't work at all, she still looks freaked out.

"Oh, yeah! Let's wreck this joint!" Amethyst however remains indifferent however the subject and is still just as anxious. She and Garnet move a fair distance apart and get into position to fuse. I never did get the full view of when the gems fused so while Pearl looks uneasy, I'm somewhat excited to see an actual fusion dance without a giant bird trying to eat us.

"Synchronize." Garnet says and proceeds to… dance.

"Whoa." Is all I can say at the… movements the two begin to exhibit. Looking over to Pearl, I see a noticeable blush appear on her face and quickly covers Stevens eyes.

"Wha-? Whu-? Pearrrl... Come on! I wanna see!" He tries to pull off her fingers but I cover him up as well.

"No can do little man. This is… uh… not suitable… for…" I trail off as I swallow and lean to Pearl. "Are all fusion dances so… intimate and expressive?" I whisper to her.

"Yes, they do. When two gems fuse, there is a connection between the two that go far deep into each other's core that allows them share a veritable amount of feelings and emotions between the two, as well as the power that both gems can harness when together." She says somewhat somberly. Good with my answer, I turn back to the two gems just as they come together.

At first it looks normal like the almost one I saw back at the sky spire but things go crazy and their forms start to turn bigger and bigger until they form into this Sugilite, turning them into a veritable powerhouse of a gem that absolutely radiates with strength and power. I didn't even need to hear her voice to deduce that.

"Hahahahaha!" Sugilite laughs loudly as she cracks her knuckles. "I forgot how GREAT it feels to be me!"

"That's Sugilite?" Steven says in awe.

"Holy…" I add as well as I take in this creature before me. I can't help but take a step back in preparation for… something.

"You got it, baby. Hey, Steven. Wanna see something cool?" Sugilite appeals to Stevens child-like wonder. I don't know if she saw the wariness that I'm exhibiting but I'm staying silent.

"Yeah!" At Steven's insistence, Sugilite happily obliges. She pulls out giant versions of Garnet's gauntlets and Amethyst's whip before fusing them together into some sort of wrecking ball weapon. Steven gasps loudly in amazement.

"You like that, little man?"

"Are you gonna smash stuff with your wrecking-ball-thingy?" He asks her.

"That's the plan! Where should I start?" Sugilite asks as she turns to the pillars.

"Hold up. I don't know about you but you can't jus-"

"Do that one!" Steven proceeds to interrupt my warning and points to a pillar. Almost instantly, Sugilite proceeds to smash the pillar he pointed to and other pillars as well.

"Steven, I think we should go." Pearl says as she tries to pull Steven to the warp pad.

"No way! This is awesome!" Steven however wants to stay.

"Steven, I really think we should go. Sugilite is starting to get-"

"Watch it!" Pearl interrupts me with her words and the rock with a kick, breaking it in half.

"Whoa!" I yelp and summon my swords in an instant, chopping another boulder with an X-cross of both my swords.

"OW!" A small rock gets past me and Pearl and hits Steven in the face.

"Steven!" Pearl and I exclaim. I move over to him to check and see if he's alright. "Ugh, you're just too much!" I hear Pearl yell to Sugilite.

"Maybe you're just too LITTLE!" Is her reply.

"Steven, you alright man?" I ask him as I help him to his feet. The rock didn't do anything too major to him, just a small cut.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Steven, Marcus, we're going!" Pearl says to us as she picks Steven up. They begin walking to the warp pad while I ready myself with my swords in case more rocks are sent towards us.

"What? I'm fine! What about Sugilite?" Steven asks as I slowly walk back so I'm not too far away from them.

"She can find her own way home!"

"Awww..." Steven lets out a dejected moan at not being able to see Sugilite's destructive prowess.

"Marcus lets go!" Pearl calls out to me. Looking back, I see both her and Steven standing in front of the Warp pad.

"Coming!" I call back and jog over to them. As I get closer, I notice a shadow move over me. Looking up, I see a massive boulder fly towards the warp pad and they haven't noticed it. "Guys!" I yell and throw away my swords.

"Wha-" She looks up in time to see the boulder heading right towards them. Her eyes widen in horror but I quickly tackle them onto the pad and activate it at the same time.

* * *

"Waaaa!" Steven yells as he is sent flying out of the warp portal as all three of us make it back to the temple. "Whoooaaa! That was so cool! Marcus, Pearl! What do you guys…" He yells to us but stops at seeing our still forms.

In my haste to save Pearl and Steven, I must have activated the warp pad and I'm holding onto Pearl tightly. Right now my senses, and spine, are pretty jarred right now because of the sudden warp travel, and the fact that I landed flat on my back on a hard crystal surface. Pearl shakes her head a bit to clear her sense of the rough landing and finally sees what she's landing on. The pain starts' receding from my body and it's when we look into each other's eyes do I finally release her. "Sorry."

"No no, it's… its fine." She nervously says as she gets up from me. Groaning from the impact, I stand up as well. Remembering what happened just before we disappeared, I try to activate the warp pad to no success.

"Looks like we aren't going back to the communication hub." I say out loud. For a few seconds, no one responds. I look back and to see that Pearl is already walking outside and Steven is standing there. "Crap. That wasn't awkward at all." I say to myself.

* * *

So far, the rest of the day has started to pass and Steven had decided to flaunt his 'injury' to Sadie and Lars at Big Donut. Soon after that, he had his dad start to make a makeshift gym on the beach. After Greg made some barbell sets out of paint cans, a climbing station, a tire obstacle course, he fell asleep. I get the feeling that he is out of shape because when a person falls asleep in the middle of construction work, their either an insomnia, or not as healthy as one would expect. Either way, I decided to go ahead and get my own work out started. Not wanting to disturb Greg from his sleep, I found a flat rock and spent the last hour doing reps of simple exercises, sit-up, push-ups, and stepping up and down on the rock to simulate stairs. Now I decide to push things up a bit and go it in a way I've really only seen in movies: Handstand push-ups.

"Heya!" I grunt as I push myself up into my handstand position. Feeling myself angled right, I begin. Unlike how most people see in the movies of something like this, sure it looks cool but some people don't particularly realize that you use your own body as a weight. After a dozen pushes, my arms start to burn from the exertion but I push through and continue. Over the time I've been exercising since my excursion against that monster on the beach at night during the storm, I've noticed that the results of my workout have been a bit more pronounced than a regular human has. I don't know if it's my gem biology or my mother's form that helped but I'm thankful nonetheless. Even right now, I can almost feel my muscles starting to tense up and harden.

"That's it Marcus!"

The loud voice causes me to stop on my 75th rep and look up. Steven has an excited look on his face with Sadie, Lars and his dad standing next to him. _'Guess I was so wrapped up in my thoughts I didn't notice them here.'_

"That's the type of workout I like to see!" Steven says with much enthusiasm. I lightly smile at that.

"Shouldn't you be wearing more… appropriate workout clothes?" Sadie asks. Comparing clothes, she's right. She, Lars and Steven are wearing clothes that are fit for working out while I am still in my regular attire, jeans, shoes, t-shirt, jacket and all. Hell I still have my Beretta's on me as well, fully loaded, that's a few pounds added right there.

"Maybe…" I grunt out. In one quick move, I let myself move low to the ground and push myself up hard, flipping forward and landing on my feet. To say the others are surprised is an understatement. I walk myself over to a large rock. "But it just adds to the weight and resistance. Besides…" As I stand in front of the rock, I look to my right hand.

* * *

 _Finally, I push back._

 _When they are a couple feet from me, in defiance, I slam my fists hard into the ground. To my surprise, an area-of-effect attack happens around me, sending a concussive blast away from me, sending my attackers far away from me._

* * *

I close my fist at the memory of that battle and the power I used. Most of me was increased tremendously when I walked out of my mom's rooms, she also said my powers would as well. I close my eyes and breathe in steadily, concentrating of moving power to my right hand. It doesn't look it but I feel something in my hand. It's hard to describe but decide to put it to the test. I look to the rock and open my hand into a palm strike.

Reaching back, I tense my arm up and faster than anyone can blink, I thrust.

*CRACK!*

My arm crashes through rock, sending ripples of cracks all throughout its body until it crumbles away to gravel. My arm feels sore from the hit but the effect is all I need. I turn back to the others as I shake the dust from my hand. Steven is mouth agape in pure awe, Sadie and Lars's minds are probably blown from this example and so does Greg. "… I think I'm pretty good with how I wear."

"Whooooooaaaaaa!" Steven says as he places his hands against his face.

"How did you…" Lars begins to say but trails off.

"Break more stuff! Like Sugilite!" Steven cuts off any more comments. I frown a bit at his sort of obsession with the fusion gem. I'm not as enthusiastic about her as he is, the carelessness she exhibited with the communication hub and just the feeling I got with her just completely rubbed me the wrong way.

"Easy Steven. Power and breaking stuff is all well and good, but balance is a good thing to have as well." I warn him. He doesn't look any different and probably still wants me to break something. "Sorry man, but I already got my work out today. I need to get back to work in cleaning my stuff." I say and proceed to walk back to the house. Unfortunately, I almost walk into Pearl. "Oh crap! Sorry, Pearl. Didn't see you there."

"No worries. No harm done." She says with a slight smile.

"Good, good."

"We'll need sweat bands!" Steven runs past the both of us and up to the Beach House.

I sigh, _'Looks like he still wants to get muscle strong.'_

"Hey Pearl. Come to check out some buff studs?" I can't help but look back to Greg at his statement.

Pearl looks Greg over. "No." I stifle a laugh at her bluntness and walk with her up to the Beach House where we meet Steven with several sweat bands. "Steven, what on earth are you up to?" she asks him.

"Getting strong." I say and lean against the house.

" Yeah! We're starting a gym!" He answers as well and flexes. "Imma get supa strong! Like Sugilite!" He finishes. Interesting enough, I can't help but note how Pearl looked happy and smiled at the thought of Steven getting strong but immediately turns disheartened at the mention of the fusion.

"You know, maybe this isn't a good idea." She tries to dissuade him from his quest of getting strong.

"What? I wanna be strong so I can be useful to the team!" He tries to reason. I like his reason but how he's going about it might not work as much.

"There are different ways of being strong..." She tries to reason to him on the other possibilities of strong.

"She's right Steven. Muscles aren't everything." I add. True, there have been moments where I could have used super strength, more than I have now, but I always preferred my way of using movement to be able to beat my opponents.

"But I want to be strong in the real way." He continues to stick to his way of doing things. "Come on, guys." He puts on a sweatband. "Let's get beefy!" At his last decoration, I notice Pearl blushes angrily about it.

"I'd rather not." She says and enters the Beach House.

"Marcus?" he asks me now. I open my mouth to say something

" _Why do you have to look up to her  
Aside from in a literal sense?  
Don't you know that a power that big  
Comes with a bigger expense_

But a voice interrupts me, causing both Steven and I to look inside to see it was Pearl. We both duck to the ground however as Pearl turns back to the window.

 _And can't you see that she's out of control  
And overzealous?  
I'm telling you for your own good,  
And not because I'm-_

 _I can show you how to be strong...  
In the real way.  
And I know that __**we**_ _can be strong  
In the real way._

 _And I want to_ _ **inspire**_ _you  
I want to be your rock  
And when I talk  
It lights a fire in you_

I look back inside to see Pearl give small reprieve at her singing and walk to the door. I quickly crawl my way to the side of the house so she doesn't see me.

"Who' s ready to get buff?!" I look back to see Steven is back on the beach with a megaphone and the stereos volume cranked up. "I don't wanna see your gut. I wanna see your guts!" He yells to the others. I see him look back to the house but towards Pearl. They both share eye contact for a second before she looks away and head back into the house. Steven proceeds to sing his own version of the song.

" _I can show you how to be strong...  
In the real way  
And I know that __**we**_ _can be strong  
In the real way"_

Now Steven and Pearl begin to sing but I pay more attention to Pearl's voice.

" _And I want to inspire you  
I want to be your rock  
And when I talk  
It lights a fire in you_

 _I want to_ _ **inspire**_ _you  
I want to be your rock  
And when I talk  
It lights a fire in you."_

"My god." I say under my breath. In all the time I've been here with the gems, a song isn't something I thought I would hear and Pearl… Needless to say that she sung beautifully. Flawlessly if want to say more. Seeing her still look a little depressed, I step back so she doesn't know I've been eavesdropping.

"Hey, Steven. Maybe um... you can work out a bit, too?" I hear Sadie ask Steven.

"Uh-huh? I have been."

"We've been working out." Lars grumbles out annoyingly to Steven. "You've just been singing some dumb song. And what about him!? He hasn't been working out with us." Even if I didn't hear him, Lars's pointing and gesturing to me kind of extenuates that. "He's just been polishing his-!" Lars rant puses as he get a good look at my berretta in my hand.

"Your right." Steven turns back to me and points his megaphone at me. "Hey Marcus! C'mon and join us. You can really show us how to pump iron!" he loudly says to me while flexing his arms.

I really don't like his sort of obsession with getting beefy strong and all, especially not after having seen Sugilite with her prowess. I stare at them for a few seconds before looking around for something to demonstrate another form of power. Looking up, I spot the temples statue and smile at an idea.

I run up along the side of the house until I grab the edge of the roof and easily hoist myself up. As I plant my feet firmly on the roof and I run over to the mountainous rock area and proceed to climb my way up, using my dexterity and athleticism to make my way up. The rocks and outcroppings are child's play to me in climbing up but when I get to the smooth stone statue part, that's where the challenge starts.

I hear the door open behind me and look back to see Pearl looking up at me with wide eyes. Ignoring her warning, I start climbing my way up. The smooth stone structure at first really hampers how much I can grab so I have to find mall cracks for my fingers to fit into. _'Man, I don't envy people who scale cliffs.'_ I think as I crawl up a little more. This brings back memories of when I watched one of the early Mission Impossible movies where close to the beginning, the main character was introduced scaling a massive sheer cliff thin mountain with his bare hands. After he made it to the top and got those mission info glasses or whatever from the helicopter, I was wondering just how was he going to be able to get down.

My thoughts are interrupted as I go to grab sharp ledge along the neck line of the statues dress, it breaks. The clump of rocks in my right hand make me lose my grip on the hand and my feet, resulting in me dangling by my left hand.

"Marcus!" I hear the concerned voice of all my friends down below, Steven's being a bit louder because of the megaphone. I dangle there for a few tense seconds, catching my breath as I stare into their concerned faces. Steven looks freaked out, Lars, Sadie, Greg don't know what to do, and Pearl is absolutely freaked out as she looks around for something to do or grab to help me out.

With a grunt of determination, I swing my arm back around and continue my climb like its nothing. The face part of the statue is a little bit easier with all its facial features but I'm being extra careful so I don't break anything significant off. The journey is smooth sailing as I move to the side of the face and launch myself onto the arm of the statue that's outstretched. Making sure the arm is sturdy, I lightly run along it towards the palm that's extended out to the beach. When I make it to the wrist, I slow my pace until I am standing on the tips of the fingers.

Height has never been an issue to me so I go ahead and take in the beauty of the landscape, especially the sun that starts to lower over the water as the wind billows against me, not enough to push me off but enough to have hair and my jacket wave with the wind. I can see all of Beach City, the highway leading out of town and far off into the oceans distance. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I swear I could hear Sugilite continue to destroy the communication hub and roar out in defiance. As I open my eyes, I see everyone continue to stare at me. Pearl looks slightly relieved at my progress and Steven looks up in awe at me. I smile at the effect I've had on the others as well as proving to myself on how agile I am enough to climb this structure.

Now you may be wondering how I'm going to be getting down from my position. See, unlike Tom cruise in the second mission impossible movie, my way of going down is easier.

I walk off.

The wind immediately kicks up around my ears as I hear the concerned cries of my friends. My face remains its calm stoic self as the ground comes closer and closer to me with my jacket kicking up all over the place.

*Crash*

* * *

In a large billow of smoke and sand, Marcus hits the ground hard. Pearl jumps down from the house and moves with the others to see how their friend is doing. Fearing the worst, Pearl summons her spear and sends a large gust of wind against the make-shift smoke cloud. To everyone's surprise, Marcus is there in a small crater on one hand and knee, looking no worse for wear. Slowly, he stands up and lightly shakes himself off of sand with a few brushes of his hand on his jacket. He casually walks out of the crater giving a nod to Pearl and stands in front of Steven.

"Strength isn't everything Steven. People can fight and contribute in other ways." He says to him. He pats his head as he walks past him. "Think about it." With that, he makes his way to the beach house.

Everyone waits a bit until Marcus walks into the house. "Whoa." Greg voices everyone's thoughts on the situation.

"That… was so cool!" Steven says with excitement in his voice.

"I… don't know… how…" Lars tries to reason what happened but can't.

"That… was pretty cool." Sadie agrees with Steven.

"Pretty impressive, right Pearl?... Pearl?" Greg asks the gem but when she doesn't answer, he looks to see that she's gone. Looking around, he spots her walking into the house and slamming the door. "Huh, what's up with her?"

* * *

"What was that?!" I turn back to see Pearl angrily stalking towards me.

"What? Back there? Just wanted to show Steven another means of getting strong." I say as I look back to her and sit down on the couch to let my feet rest.

"How?! By killing yourself?" she asks incredulously.

"No. I also wanted to test an ability of mine." I explain. With all the opportunity's and potential ability's that my mom did, I want to try to make sure I can do as much of them as I can. Falling from very high heights can be very useful.

"So what? Punching a rock wasn't enough for you?" She asks with bitterness lacing her tone.

' _Oh, she saw that.'_ I think with a side look.

"If you wanted to show Steven power and strength, that wasn't a very wise move. And neither was falling off a cliff!" she almost yells the last part. "You know how impressionable he can be!"

I stand up and walk over to her, "What's up with you? Ever since Sugilite appe-"

"Don't you dare speak about her here!" she angrily cuts her off.

"I don't care about her here! I care about you!"

Silence follows after my words. Even I'm surprised at my sudden statement.

Slowly, I take a deep breath to control my emotions, "I don't know what it is you got going on, but you need to lock it up. Without Garnet and Amethyst here, we are severely underpowered. When the time comes," I begin to say and walk over to the door, "I expect you to know who your friends." I slam the door closed.

* * *

I didn't get much sleep last night. After I left, I just walked around town to clear my head. Didn't help much so when I finally got back to the house, I found Steven was completely conked out and Pearl had already retired to the temple. I've thought about trying to activate my mother's room so I can have my own place to chill out but I remember her mentioning that it was only a recording. Plus my gem isn't on the temple door, unlike the others, so I just haven't bothered in trying. I spent the majority of the time working on some of my things. Nothing worth a breakthrough but hopefully soon.

"Steven, come on! We're ready to get started! We can't work out without your mad coaching skills!" Sadie's loud voice from the beach wakes me from my slumber. I find that I'm actually sleeping against the kitchen counter. Thinking back to how long I was awake last night and the time now, I can say I probably got a half-dozen hours of sleep.

"Ohhhhh… Be there in a sec!" Ignoring the cramps in my back and neck, I looks over to Steven to see him getting off the bed, with many groans of pain following, as he proceeds to go down the stairs. "So sore from getting ripped..."

"Get use to it man." I say and get off the stool, my muscles sore as well from the workout yesterday and exercising my powers quite thoroughly. "If you want the ripped and beefy structure you seem so fond of wanting to get, get used to a lot of tired and soreness to go along with it. Like the saying goes 'No pain, no gain.'"

"Uhhhhh." He groans out at the thought of all the pain he could be getting if he continues his workout.

"I don't understand." Steven and I look over to Pearl to see her standing on the war pad. "Amethyst and Garnet still aren't back yet. I tried to warp back and check on them, but the Warp Pad's still down!"

"Damn. So the warp pad did break before we left. How are they going to-"

Suddenly, the ground starts to shake, almost sending me falling to the ground but I grab the counter to steady myself.

"What?"

"Are you seeing this too?!" Multiple voices outside can be heard in tandem with the loud and rough shaking. Pieces of the house starts to crumble and debris begins to fall all around us.

"Whoa!" I move back as a rock on the roof lands where I was standing.

"Wha!"

"Wha-" Pearl and Steven avoid the debris as well as the shaking gets rougher.

I grab my AK on the table and head to the door. "Outside!" I yell to the two of them and kick the door open. Steven stumbles out but Pearl is hot on his heels. All three of us go to the balcony railing to see a bad sight, in my opinion at least. Sugilite is walking towards us from the ocean. "Well, looks like she took the long way back." I comment. Everyone down on the beach proceeds to run away from Sugilite as she comes close to the beach

"I'M... BORED!" Sugilite roars out.

"It's Sugilite!" Steven says as I see Pearl head down to the beach.

"What the hell is she doing?" I grit out and hold my rifle in my hands as I make my way towards the two.

"Y-you're back!" Pearl nervously says to the giant gem.

"YOU LEFT ME BEHIND!" She says as she points at Pearl.

"We just thought you didn't need any help. Now why don't you separate, and we can all sit down and relax?" She tries to ease down the fusion as she gestures over to the Beach House and I move beside her.

' _Good. Hopefully she can calm-'_

"No!" My thoughts are interrupted as Sugilite kicks Pearl away.

"Pearl!" I yell to her as she goes flying back. "What the hell you b-!?" I yell at the fusion but I back flip back as she tries to kick me. I manage to dodge her attack and slide back to Pearl.

"Pearl! Marcus!" Steven yells to us in concern.

"Listen to me! You've been fused for too long! You're losing yourselves!" Pearl tries to reason with the fusion as I subtly click the safety on my AK to off.

"I AM MYSELF! AND I'M SICK OF BEING SPLIT UP! So you better get used to me, baby. AND GET THIS JUNK OFF MY BEACH!" Sugilite bellows out in defiance, stepping on the gym thus destroying it.

Steven struggles over to us. "Why is she wrecking Dad's gym? Why is she attacking you?!" He asks us with genuine concern and confusion.

"Steevveeen." I say warily and wave my hand for him to stay back.

"Get out of here!" Pearl says as she grabs Steven by the collar of his shirt and tosses him away. She summons her spear and gets into a ready stance. "You too Marcus."

"With all due respect Pearl, no." I firmly tell her.

"I'm not asking." She says to gritted teeth and tightens her grip on her spear.

"And I'm not budging." I reply in the same tone and shoulder my rifle, taking aim at Sugilites face.

"WHAT? YOU WANNA FIGHT?!" She asks us but something tells me she already knows our answer and is just toying with us.

"You'll thank me... LATER!" she yells and jumps toward Sugilite. She easily anticipates the attack and hits Pearl away. While my blood boils at seeing Pearl get hit, I stand firm knowing that won't take her down. As Sugilite smiles at the hit, I open fire.

With my gun held strong against my shoulder and my physique, I easily hold the rifle still as I depress the trigger, sending dozens of rounds straight towards Sugilites face without a single one missing. Her smile turns to a gritted frown at the multitude of bullets impacting against her skin. They don't break through but the force of them hitting causes her to flinch hard. A group off my shots hit hard against her visor, shattering it into dozens of pieces and knocking it off her face, now revealing her fierce and angry five eyes.

"YOU THINK YOU'RE SOMETHING?" She yells to us. I go to grab another mag but a rush of air causes me to look up.

Everything goes in slow motion to me as I watch the full force of her weapon come straight towards my body.

*CRASH!*

* * *

Pearl watches in horror as her friend takes the full force of Sugilites weapon to his front and crashes hard against the mountain; his form leaving a deep indentation into the rocky structure before he limply leans forward and falls out of the hole, crashing to the ground in a ragdoll state.

"MARCUS!" She cries out at the possibility of him being dead. She stands up to head over to him.

" YOU!" Sugilite intercepts Pearl by kicking her into the air. "AIN'T!" She smashes Pearl into the ground with a strong punch. "NOTHING!" She finishes yelling and brings her weapon up to flatten Pearl but misses. The resulting attack however makes Steven and Greg fly away, landing on the ground hard as the two skid along the ground.

"My muscles!" Steven groans out as the soreness in his muscles are raking his body.

"Steven!" Pearl groans out to the boy. Seeing his weakened form and her opponent, she starts to feel hopeless, kneeling down in the ground and cries at the hopelessness of the situation. "I'm sorry" She whispers to herself at her apparent failure.

* * *

'…'

* * *

"... Steven, Garnet, Amethyst..." She sniffs, tears running down her face through closed eyes.

* * *

'…'

* * *

She looks over to the still and beaten form of Marcus. More tears stream down her face as her hand grips the ground tightly.

"Marcus…" she chokes out.

* * *

 _*…Thump-thump…*_

* * *

" I wasn't strong enough…"

* * *

 _*Thump-thump*_

* * *

"To protect you."

* * *

 _*Thump-thump*_

* * *

"I'm not strong enough to do anything..." She continues to cry out her uselessness.

"Come on, Pearl!" She looks up to the side to see Steven lying down on the ground with the megaphone at his mouth. "Don't give up! I know you can take her down!" Steven tries to encourage her.

"I can't..." She says depressingly

"Yes, you can! Come on! You always knew what to do! You gotta show her what you showed me! That you're strong, Pearl! Strong in the REAL WAY!" Steven yells out through tears forming on the corners of his eyes. She looks down though.

"But…"

"HRAAAA!" She looks up and closes her eyes at seeing Sugilites wrecking ball of a weapon come straight for her, ready to end her.

A sudden gust of wind hits her and she flinches, expecting the attack to follow.

*CLANG!*

...

...

...

"You know…" Pearls eyes widen at the voice. She stares up at the person in front of her.

Marcus stands there, his body facing her as he has his arms crossed over his head, holding Sugilites massive weapon from crushing the both of them. His clothing is ripped in several places; he wears a smile on his face, despite the bruises he adorns and the trail of blood leaking out the side of his mouth and face.

"You think yourself weak… but you're not Pearl. You're one of the strongest and most powerful people I have ever known. Don't doubt that." He says calmly, despite holding a couple tons of weight over his head. "Besides, I made a promise I would protect you."

* * *

I lower myself a little, "And I…!" I say with increasing crescendo as I push up, throwing the heavy weapon off me for a second before twisting my body around. "… Meant it!" I yell and connect with my right fist against the weapon, my kinect strike overpowering the weight of the weapon and sending it hurtling up high into the sky and back.

"WHOA!" Sugilite cries out in surprise as she still grips her weapon, forcing herself back as well until she falls back into the water.

"Marcu-Wha!" Pearl begins to say but is suddenly cut off as I grabs her bridal style and speed away, picking up Steven along the way to around the corner. I place the two of them down.

"You two okay?"

"Wha- We're fine but you-?!" she tries to say but gestures to my beaten form.

"What happened?" Steven asks from his position on the ground.

"Not important." I quickly say and peak around the corner and pull Greg as he comes around. Once he's out of sight, I spot Sugilite getting out from the water.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!" She bellows out angrily, obviously pissed at the stunt I pulled.

"What do we do?" Greg asks quietly so she doesn't hear us.

I look back to them and see the stumped looks on their faces. I close my eyes for a second as I think about everything we have at our disposal. My thinking doesn't take long and I give a hard look to Pearl. "I have a plan."

* * *

Sugilite looks around, trying to find her targets and the pests that have been annoying her.

"Hey! Big ugly?!"

*Bang*Bang*

Sugilite grunts as a couple shots come dangerously close to hitting her eyes. She looks to the beach and spots Marcus standing there with his rifle aimed at her. "Lookin' for me?!" He says and shoots a few rounds towards her, making sure he got her attention.

"YOU!" She yells and points towards Marcus with her two right hands. Marcus turns tail and starts running to the back of the cliff the temple resides against. "GET BACK HERE!" She yells out and chases after the hybrid human, completely missing Pearl as she heads to the temple itself.

Marcus continues to run up the back of the mountain with Sugilite hot on his heels. _'Alright, she's chasing after me. Good, good. I need to make sure she sticks to me as I make it to the cliff. Pretty sure I accomplished that by-'_

*CRASH!*

"Argh!" Marcus's thoughts are interrupted as he yells out when something big crashes just behind him, forcing him to fly forward and roll on the ground until he lays on his stomach. His AK flew out of his hands and slides along the ground till it falls off the cliff. "Shit. I need to- AHHHHHHHH!" He yells out in pain as something big and massive crushes his left arm. When he manages to get himself under control, he looks to see his arm completely crushed into the ground by a massive foot.

His mind draws a blank at the situation he found himself in before he lets out a strangled grunt as the foot is lifted off his arm, releasing the pressure. He sees a bump forming on his forearm and because he can't move it, it's broken. "Gotcha." A deep menacing voice is heard over Marcus as a giant meaty hand digs into the ground around him and picks him up. He tries to struggle out of the grip but his battered form prevents him from breaking free. He is soon brought before the face of a very pissed off but satisfied fusion gem. "You thought you could get away from me?" She asks menacingly. Marcus goes to talk but Sugilite squeezes her fist, crushing Marcus.

"Ahhhh! Fuck! God damnit!" He cries out in pain as the life is almost crushed out of him.

"You thought you could get away from me?" She says with more malice in her voice.

*Pop*

"AHHHHH!" Marcus groans out as he feels something break inside of his chest. If he had to guess, a rib just broke. Hopefully it didn't puncture his lung.

It's not a good sign as he coughs up a few specks of blood but grits his teeth.

"You thought you could defeat me?" Sugilite grabs Marcus's already broken arm, making him wince.

"You were wrong."

*SNAP!*

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" He screams his lungs out as his arm is broken even further, his arm bending entirely the wrong way with his elbow shattered. "AHhhhhh… haaaaaa… haaa… haaaa." His screaming dying out until he breathes out heavily. Sugilite lets go of his arm, letting the limb fall limply against Sugilites knuckles.

"YOU ARE NOTHING! You are nothing compared to me! I AM BETTER THAN YOU ALL!" She bellows out towards the injured human. "I-… WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?!" She screams out in a pissed off tone.

"Hahahaha. HAAAA. Hahahahahaha ha ha haaaaaa!" He breathes in deeply from his bout of laughter, making him wince from his broken rib but lets out a sigh. "You think you've beaten me? You think you've won?" He says defiantly towards her with a bloody smile.

"WHAT?!"

"In chess, the two very important pieces that I think that are in chess… are the pawns and the queen. The king is supposed to be protected yeah but you can't make your opponent forget it. It's the key to the game. The key to winning. The pawns are expendable and the most numerous. People tend to forget them and can take out any other piece. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board and is sought after… because she can move anywhere and sneak up on anyone." He begins to explain to the fusion.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" She squeezes a bit more, causing Marcus to groan out.

"Arrrrrgghhhh!..." He grunts and prepares himself as he reaches into his pocket. "I!" He yells into her face. "AM THE PAWN!"

*CLANG!*

"Huh?" Sugilite looks down to see something between her feet on the edge of the cliff. Looking closely, its Pearls spear with something strapped to it. To anyone else, it's a mess of wires and pipes duct-taped together.

To Marcus and Pearl… it's his prototype.

"Pearl," he begins to say, making Sugilite look at him as he holds something in his right hand. "Is my Queen."

He presses a button on his phone.

"Checkmate, bitch." He says with a toothy smile.

*Ring-ring*Ring-ring*Ring-ring*

The IED's phone goes off.

*BOOOM!*

* * *

The one IED itself isn't enough to destroy Sugilite… but I bet a fall from a cliff could.

"AHHHHH!" Sugilite yells as the ground she's standing on collapses under feet, sending her falling to the ground and in her panic, letting me go. I quickly push myself away from her with my legs so I don't get crushed by her or she doesn't grab me again. Unfortunately it also pushes me towards a group of sharp rocks.

"Oh shit." I groan out as I close my eyes and bring my good arm in front of me in hopes of lessening the damage.

Something grabs me before I hit the rocks.

"Gotcha!"

Opening my eyes, I see the strong arms holding me aloft and changing my direction suddenly is none other than Pearl. With grace, she manages to land on the ground softly despite my extra weight. Slowly but carefully, she lowers me to the ground, being careful with my injuries as I'm laid against a rock. "Thanks."

"…" The silence from her causes me to look at her. I see her holding her hands to her mouth in abject horror and tear stricken eyes. "Marcus…"

Look down at myself, I can see why she's devastated and horrified at what I look like. Apart of my chest looks slightly caved in, the taste of iron is evident on my tongue, and don't even get me started on my arm. The way how its bent the wrong way and slightly gnarled would make anyone cringe. "Yeah… not looking so good."

"Marcus…"

"Relax Pearl… the injuries look worse than they are but nothings life threatening. It's just painful." I try to ease her mind but she seems to remain indifferent.

"*Sigh* Marcus." She gently lays a hand on my leg. "I should have been faster. If I was… then maybe this wouldn't…" she trails off while looking to the side. I reach to and grab her hand tightly with my still good arm.

"No tears Pearl. No regret. We got the others back, and that's what's important." I say to her. She looks me in the eye as I give her smile to show I'm not disappointed with her. She smiles and squeezes my hand back.

"Is that all you GOT?!" We let go at the loud voice and she turns around to see Sugilite standing up.

"Or not." I comment as Pearl materializes her Spear. _'Jeez, how much more do we need to do before she quits?'_ I think.

"You think that's enough to beat-" She gets interrupted by her wrecking ball of a weapon landing on her head. With a loud 'poof' noise, Sugilite is gone and Garnet and Amethyst are there on the ground as well.

"Phew." I breathe out at not having to deal anymore wit Sugilites crap.

"Amethyst. Garnet." Pearl breathes out at the sight of her two friends.

"Go." She looks back to me. "Make sure they're okay." I ask her to do.

"But-"

"I'm not going anywhere Peal. I can recover. Make sure they can." I reason with her. She stares at me for a few seconds before she nods.

"Are two you okay!?" She asks the former fusion gems as she runs over to them.

With a sigh, I lie back against the rock and close my eyes, letting myself be at peace for a few moments at the ordeal we all went through.

"You're not dead on us, are you?" I open my eyes to the voice to see Mr. Universe standing over me.

"It's gonna take a lot more than this to take me down, Mr. Universe." I firmly tell him as I try to get up.

"Here, let me help." He reaches under my right arm and slings it over his shoulder, helping me stand with him. "And uhhh, you can call me Greg anytime you know." He clarifies his name status as he helps me over to the gathered gems.

"Thanks… Greg. You're a good man." I thank him.

"Thanks. So are you." I smile at his compliment just as we make it to them.

"I've got a monster headache."

"Suck it up, Amethyst." I grumble out, causing everyone's eyes to turn to me. "You're not the one with a broken arm, dislocated spine, and a broken rib." I list out my most apparent injuries.

"Sorry." She apologizes.

"We're sorry Marcus. Pearl was right." Garnet groans out from her position on the ground.

"Yeah," I say and look to said gem. "Yeah she was." I say tiredly. She blushes and turns away at the compliments. "Also, just know, you're not making Sugilite again. Even if I have to knock one of you out." I sternly tell them in a tone that they know I'm not screwing around.

"Ugh, noted." Garnet grunts out from her abused body.

"Uh... What the heck just happened?!" I hear Lars cry out as both he and Sadie make it back to us. Looking around at the destroyed gym, the deep divots on the ground, the destroyed front of the temple, and even all of our extremely battered forms, I can't help but lightly chuckle, earning confused looks from everyone.

"Life… Lars… this… is our lives." I say as the pain starts to catch up with me now that the adrenaline is starting to dissipate. "My life…" I whisper to myself as I close my eyes.

' _And I wouldn't trade it for the world.'_

 **And another anticipated chapter out of the way. Man, that whole chess analogy I came up with right on the spot and man did it feel totally awesome to write. Just a snarky, cocky attitude for Marcus to have in the face of low odds for him and Pearl.**

 **Most of my tests are out of the way right now so I have another month till I have to take another few tests in the span of a few days so hopefully we can expect quicker chapters in the coming weeks.**

 **Also on top of that other fanfic I was thinking of doing, I was also thinking of other things to do involving this story, maybe one where it's a mass collection of side story's, omakes, other scenarios and other off-canon stuff. I was even thinking of other story versions of this one where Marcus meets the gems with a team of his own. I don't know, review or PM me what you guys think I should or shouldn't do once I get this story caught up with the show itself. That's my top priority first and foremost. Any new fics and story's I plan to make or you guys want me to make would be made AFTER this one is caught up and done with.**

 **With that done and as always, have fun reading.**


	14. 13 Recovering

"Arg!"

"Hold still!"

"Marcus please! Calm down!"

"Speak for yoursel-"

*CRACK*

"AHHH! Fuck!" I cry out as my arm is set back in place. I collapse back into the bed and breathe lowly.

"Alright… and that's the last of it." The doctor finishes setting the bones in my broken arm into place and writes on a nearby clipboard.

It's been over a day since our fight with Sugilite and while Garnet and Amethyst are still resting, I needed to make sure that my injuries were tended to so nothing would get healed wrong. Pearl was good, she managed to stabilize me but unfortunately we didn't have the proper medical equipment to treat me and make sure my bones were set right. Normally I would just steal the stuff but considering my condition, and Steven's insistence that stealing is wrong, Pearl and I had to actually go to the hospital and get me treated by an actual doctor.

"Thanks doc." I say and slowly sit up as a nurse proceeds to place a cast on the arm.

"Don't mention it." She says and turns back to us with the clipboard. "By the way, how did you get injured again?" she asks me.

"Well see he-"

"I fell off a cliff." I quickly interrupt Pearl before she says anything too revealing of our nature. Hell to make sure the doctors and nurses didn't notice my gems was we wrapped my biceps up in the type of tape boxers use on their fists and claim they were a way to help me train and not pull anything. Thankfully they bought it and were allowed to keep them on since my injuries didn't directly involve those areas.

"Really?" she asks incredulously.

"Yes, really." I say firmly. "The cliff over by the lighthouse? I wanted to challenge myself a little and decided to scale the cliff. I did… but unfortunately as I was standing on the edge, the ground gave way. Point is I hit a few things on the way down and landed on the sand but that wasn't enough to prevent my arm from breaking." I gesture to my arm. She looks at me for a seconds, trying to gauge my explanation and making sure nothing on my face gives her a reason to believe my story is false.

' _Your different than most doctors… but this ain't my first rodeo lady.'_ I think as we continue our staring contest.

"Alright," She seems satisfied with what she thanks and goes back to her clipboard. "Well good news is that nothings permanently set in stone. Your rib didn't puncture your lung, thankfully, your spine is only sore from whatever you impacted against it, the cuts should heal up quite nicely, and your arm was broken in several places but you came here just in time where you shouldn't be able to have any complications in the future." She lists off.

"And the bad news?" Pearl asks.

"This isn't gonna be cheap and absolutely no strenuous activities for a few months."

"Months?!" I question in surprise.

"5 to be exact." She clarifies.

"Ugh." I groan and lay back against the bed.

"I'll write a prescription for some pain medication, some antibiotics and schedule you for when you should come back and get those stitches removed, as well as a check up to make sure your bones are healing right." She finishes writing on the clipboard and tears something off and hands it to Pearl. "Here."

"Thank you."

"No problem. You can check out at the front." She says and heads to the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, its my break and I have lunch plans with my daughter."

"Thanks again Doc." I call out. In return she waves to us through the glass window and continues on. "Alright, let's go." I say to Pearl and slide off the bed.

"You sure you're alright to walk?" she asks me in concern. I wave her off as I walk to the door.

"Yeah, yeah. Nothings impacting my movement, well except this bandage on my chest but nothing too bad." I reassure her. Usually when it comes to broken or cracked ribs, doctors may sometimes use a type of brace on your entire chest area to make sure you don't move your ribs as much so they can heal properly but other times they may use a simple thick tightened bandage across your mid-section to keep those particular ribs from moving. Thankfully I only had to deal with just the bandage part, that way it won't restrict my movement as much. We soon make it to the front desk. The receptionist hands me some forms and I proceed to fill them out… not truthfully but hey, whatever works.

"Just remember to tell me if anything seems wrong, okay?" she asks of me.

"No problem Pearl." I say and hand the receptionist back the forms. "Now let's get out of here."

"Marcus?" I look to the entrance and spot a familiar face.

"Connie? What are you doing here?" I ask her. Right off the bat she doesn't look injured and is instead carrying a bag.

"Visiting my mom. She works here. She's a doctor." She answers.

"A doctor? Nice. That's cool."

"What are you doing here? And… what happened to you?" She asks, no doubt surprised at how I look.

"I got into a bit of scrap with someone. Don't worry I'm fine. You should see the other guy." I say with a smug smile, which also earns me a jab from Pearl. "Ow. Okay okay. Point is I'll be back to normal in a few months or so."

"Oh! Well that's good." Connie says with a smile. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat but my mom only has a half-an-hour break so I kind of want to spend it with her." She says with an apologetic look on her face.

"Nah, it's cool. Go meet here. We have to get home too." I say and proceed to head towards the sliding doors. "See you around."

"Bye Connie." Pearl waves goodbye as well.

"See ya!" Connie yells as the door closes. So far it's the middle of the day so the sun is high in the sky.

"Hey Pearl?" Said gem looks at me. "Why don't you head back to the others? I can be fine on my own." I ask of her.

"Are you sure?" she questions uneasily. "I mean you just got your injuries bandaged and I'm worried-"

"Pearl," I place a hand on her shoulder and look her in the eye, "I'm fine. I'm gonna take it easy for the time the doctor said but for now…" I trail off and look to the ocean. "I think I'm gonna take the scenic route home. You know, get some time to my thoughts and look around before I'm hold up in the house for the months, alright?"

"Well… if your sure." She agrees albeit a bit hesitantly.

"I am. Get going." I nod my head towards the direction of the temple. "I'm sure Steven's still moaning about his soreness from all the exercise he did, and I'm pretty sure Garnet and Amethyst are still incapacitated. Maybe you can tell them how important it is to listen to you." I propose with a smile.

"Well, I was right." She says with a far off look to the temple. "Hehe, alright. You get home soon and I'll make sure everything is alright when you get there."

"Gotcha." I nod.

"Bye, take care of yourself!" she says and proceeds to jog home. I wave to her as she heads home with a smile on my face. As soon as she's out of sight, I retain a neutral look and start walking wherever.

Now that I'm alone, I need to get my thoughts together on what I did the last couple of days. ' _My powered strikes that I did against the rock and Sugilit's weapon, as I've now dubbed them my kinetic strikes, were something that could be very useful should I need to use it in a pinch. I don't know if I can use to other parts of my body. If I could, I bet I could come up with more effective attacks, like maybe a more effective local earthquake or shock strike to everyone around me in case I get surrounded like that one stormy night. I need to make more contingency plans should things start get dire and I need to find ways to help in case I'm as hurt as I am now. I need to gain access to more weapons. My AK's barely holding on after repeated use and after falling off the cliff that only added to the potential breakage. It may be regarded as one of the most reliable weapons to use but that doesn't mean it's invincible. I need more powerful side-arms to use. Maybe an upgrade to my Beretta's or new ones all together. Some revolvers could also work…'_

"Marcus?"

I'm brought out of my thoughts and planning by my name being called. Looking left and right, I find that I've walked myself along the boardwalk and am in front of the fry shack. At the counter window is Peedee. "Oh, hey Peedee." I haven't exactly talked to the kid on a daily basis but we both at least knew each other considering what happened with Frybo. I can't help but shiver at the memory of that demonically possessed costume.

"Hey. What's uhhh, what's going on with you? You look… good." He says a little uneasily. I can't help but chuckle at him trying to be courteous about my form.

"Hehe, yeah. It's no big deal. I got into a fight with someone and I didn't get off scot free but, nothing like a few weeks rest can't fix." I say with a smile.

"That's good. Was the fight something like… you know?" he trails off and leans over the counter, looking to the side a bit where a very large but very dry residue and stain of cheese and mashed fry's were. Closing my eyes for a sec, I try to compare Sugilite and Frybo.

"Kind of." I say with a shrug.

"Well, I'm sorry to see you got beat up pretty bad because of it." He apologizes to me. I wave a hand dismissively.

"Eh, its not your fault. It just happened, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah I get you."

The conversation trails to silence after that for a few seconds.

"Hey! You never took my dad up on those free fries. Want me to fix you up some?" He proposes to me.

"Hm," I think about for a few seconds before I shrug in acceptance, "Sure, couldn't hurt."

"Great! Give me a second." He heads to the back and I immediately hear the deep fryer going off. Not a minute later, he comes back with fresh salted fries. "Here you go. Thanks again for your help that day."

"No problem man." I say and pop a fry into my mouth. It's hot because it just came out but damn does the taste overpower any debate of me spitting it out. "Mmmm, nice. You do good work my friend." I grab the plate and proceed to walk on. "Well, I'd love to compliment you some more and receive praise for my actions, I should get going. See you around." I bid him farewell and walk off.

"You too! Hope you feel better!" he calls out to me. I walk several feet away from the fry shack before turning down another way on the boardwalk and find a place to sit down and eat.

Now that that distraction is done with, I continue with my thoughts. _'So far, I've realized some new powers and done some things my mom did. For instance that falling thing I did. I don't know if I focused the kinetic power I had to my legs to negate the damage or what but so far it worked perfectly for my demonstration. That's something useful to have if I'm ever trapped on a building or cliff. My speed factor was also another thing to take into account. I remember my mom, speeding by those first enemies in her recording and cutting them down so easy. That's what I used when Pearl was about to get crushed. I just… ran. Ran forward fast enough to intercept the attack.'_ I finish off my fries and throw the plastic plate into a recycling bucket before heading down an alleyway. ' _Maybe with practice, I can better use it. Maybe get the jump if I'm surrounded again and really freak out my enemies. On another note to make, I can feel myself getting stronger and faster when I work out but there's something else to me that I find interesting. I'm strong but I don't necessarily look it. I have some muscles but I feel like I'm in Pearls situation, I don't look it but I can kick some major ass. She may be graceful and powerful with her attacks but there are times when her strength really shows forth despite her… petite appearance. Exhibit A: the rock that was flying towards her when Sugilite went crazy on the communication hub. She kicked that thing into a dozen pieces without breaking a sweat or much strain on her part. I always didn't like those bodybuilder appearances and I'm glad I retained that subdued appearance I have. In any case, I always preferred the smart way of being strong than the pure brawn way. That's why I-'_

"Hey!" I snap my head up at the loud voice at the end of the alleyway.

"Hey man! Come back here!"

"HAHA! Too bad! I got your-Gua!"

I come around the corner and clothesline the guy, forcing his bottom half to fly up as the top half stops dead in its tracks. Looking at the man's shady appearance, he tries to steady himself at the sudden impact I gave him.

"AAAGHH!" The purse snatcher yelps as I slam my foot on his wrist, forcing him to open his hand and release the purse. With a quick movement, I hook the strap of the purse in my foot and lunge it towards my open hand.

"Here you go- Jenny!?" I ask in surprise. Before me are Jenny and two other guys next to her running up to me. I haven't seen Jenny since we met at the beach party so it's nice to see her, even now.

"Marcus?! What are you doing here? And what happened to you?" she asks in confusion, no doubt surprised at my bandaged form.

"Some stuff happened the day before, now I've got a few months worth of bed rest waiting for me." I quickly explain to her.

"Rah!"

"Hold that thought." I say as the robber tries to punch me behind my head but I lean to the side and back, making him miss and stumble forward.

"Hold still you-!" he goes to punch me again but I dodge it and headbutt him easily, knocking him out.

"Now that the nuisance is dealt with, here's your purse." I walk over to the stunned teens and hand the purse to Jenny. "C'mon, let's leave this dumbass here. He's not worth our time." I shake my head away from this guy and propose for us to get going.

"Oh! Uhh, okay. Let's go guys." She agrees and all four of us get walking.

"So Jenny, how do you know this guy?" One of the guys walking with us asks her.

"Oh, right! Guys, this is Marcus! I met him when he crashed through my family's store."

I can almost feel their confusing stares on me.

"It was a… complicated situation." I try to reason but fall flat hard.

"Marcus, this is Buck and Sour Cream, my best friends." She introduces us.

"Hey." I shake both their hands.

"Hey."

"'Sup."

"So Marcus, I haven't talked to you in awhile. Anything new happen? Besides, this?" she gestures to my injuries.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with. I have been working out when I could to make sure I get stronger so I don't get tossed around like I did that one time."

"Did it work?" Buck asks. He probably means by my beat up self.

"Oh yes. Yes it did. Trust me. This could have gone a lot worse." I say. The conversation takes a small pause after that as we just continue to walk wherever.

"Those were some slick moves back there, man." Sour cream compliments me.

"Yeah, where'd you learn those?" Jenny asks, intrigued as well. Buck looks no different but he leans a little close in.

"Self taught. I used to live in some pretty bad places so trust me when I say I know my way on how to fight, despite how I look." I calmly explain to them.

"That's cool." Sour cream says.

"Yeah, it sucked for awhile but it's still pretty cool having to know these moves. Especially for jackasses like that." I point to behind us.

"Yeah, extremely useful." Jenny agrees whole heartedly. I smile at the obviousness of her happiness. When a person just steps out of nowhere and clocks the guy that steals your purse, being grateful is probably going to be one of the emotions your feeling at the time.

"I'm hungry." Sour Creams says suddenly.

"Well what do you want?" Buck asks his friend.

"I don't know. I could for some fries, or a pizza, or-"

"How 'bout a donut?" I suggest. We all stop as they look at me.

"Where?" Sour cream asks. I point behind them. They turn to see that we are standing in front of the 'Big Donut.' "Perfect. I could go for a donut." Sour Cream agrees with the idea and jogs to the door.

"Yeah, I could go for one too." Jenny agrees as well and goes with friend. Buck just shrugs and follows while I bring up the rear.

*Ding-Ding*

I walk in and see Sour Cream already ordering something. As usual, Sadie and Lars are manning the counter but Lars looks really happy to see Jenny and her friends.

"Hey! Marcus! How are you?" Sadie calls out to me as she notices I'm here. "You look… good." She says uneasily.

"Yeah, I've been getting that a lot." I comment as I rub the back of my neck.

"At least you weren't hospitalized." She tries to find the light of my situation while Lars gets the others order.

"Yeah, good thing too. Probably would have gone crazy if I was hospitalized. I don't do well in staying in one place for days on end." And I don't mean location. I'm talking about lying in bed or sitting down for practically days on end.

"With who you fought, you're lucky." Sadie says and I nod in agreement. "Can I get you anything?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"You were there when he got hurt?" Jenny asks her.

"Ohhh yeah, me and Lars were and trust us when we say, things could have turned out differently if he wasn't as good as he was." Sadie compliments me.

"Thanks Sadie. I appreciate it." I say.

"But of course-" I tune out Lars's attempt to suck up to the cool kids and look at my phone. _'It's been awhile since I last got an update on any monsters. I don't know if they've gone to ground or are heading this way from the concentration of gems. As long as no more attacks take place in any public locations, then our identity may be kept secret… hopefully.'_

*Ding-Ding*

"Hello sir! What can I get you- Sir! Put down the knife!" I put my phone in my pocket. "Marcus!" I twist around just as Sadie calls my name and bring my right hand up.

*SHICK!*

To everyone's horror and my annoyance, a knife goes through my hand as I hold onto the person's knife wielding fist. "You little shit!" The purse snatcher from before spats in my face as blood runs down his face from the broken nose I gave him. "You thought you could sucker punch me and get away with it?! Well I'm going to-… going to…" His rants dies off as he notices that I'm still holding onto his fist. He tries to pull it out but I tighten my grip harder onto him. "Ow! Ow! Owowowowow! Let go! Let go!" he begs me. I don't let go and instead tighten my grip even more, making a couple of his fingers pop and break under my strength. As I break more of his fingers, I decide enough is enough and flick my wrist forward.

*Crack*

"Arrrrghhhhh!" He screams as I snap his wrist and twist. He groans and feebly tries to pry my hand off him but to no success. To get my point across and end this, I lean back and thrust my head forward while also pulling his arm towards me, flinging him to me, making my head butt to his forehead that much more devastating. You usually aim for the bridge of the nose but now I want to knock some sense into him. With a loud 'smack,' the guy crumples unconscious, loosening his grip on his knife so I let him go. Seeing his unconscious form on the ground I look to my hand to see his knife still embedded into my flesh.

"Crap. Pearls going to kill me for getting hurt." I think out loud and grab the handle of the knife with my teeth before slowly pulling it out. Grabbing the knife in my injured hand, I find it's a butterfly knife the guy was using. "Tsk tsk tsk, seriously? A guy like you with a knife like this? No class." I comment and flip the knife around deftly before it sets into its handle form. The cool, and dangerous, things about butterfly knives are the way one opens and closes it. It requires a set of precise hand movements that one would need to be able to use it so not just everyone can use it. If you're not careful, you run the risk of cutting or stabbing yourself. "I'm keeping this." Fortunately, I'm that dexterous. I slide the knife into my pocket and turn back to the others to see everyone's surprised and scared looks. "What?"

"Um, doesn't that hurt?" Lars asks what's on everyone's mind, pointing at my hand. I bring it up and examine it further. Looking to my hand, the blade went straight through the palm of my hand and out the front. A small stream of blood runs down my hand.

"Yeah it does. But nothing I'm used to. Sadie," the girl perks up at my mention of her name. "You got any zip-ties back there?" She takes a second to process my request before reaching into a drawer and pulling out a dozen ties and placing them on the counter. I look to Buck and Sour Cream. "Tie him up." They nod, grab the ties and proceed to restrain my assailant. Next, Jenny, "Call the police." I look down to my hand. "I need to head home and bandage this thing up." I say and head to the door.

"Wait! You're not gonna go to the hospital?" Jenny asks me. As I hold the door open, I look back to them.

"I already came from the hospital. I don't want to go back. Besides nothing a few stitches and some gauze that can't fix it up. It's not my first cut like this. I'll see you guys later." I say and head out before they can say anything else. Right now I really don't want to deal with the police and have to go to the hospital again. I think I'm perfectly content with just chilling at home for now. Although for how long I'll chill will soon be determined considering the lashing I'll get from Pearl. Seriously, when I proposed my plan to Pearl after I helped her, she was not happy at all at the prospect of me being the bait but agreed to it nonetheless. _'I hope she doesn't begin to feel guilty at the idea that if she were faster, she could have saved me some pain. But I think it was inevitable regardless how fast she was.'_

*Thunk*

I stop thinking and notice that I finally made it to the stairs of the temple. If there's one thing the gems are good at, is fixing things up. Slowly, I make my way up to the front door of the temple as my hand continues to ache from the knife wound. I knock on the door once and step in.

"Hey! Good to see you again." I hear Amethyst say to me.

"Hey." I wave to her.

"Marcus." I stop walking at Pearls voice and see her standing next to the stairs with her arms crossed, foot tapping and a scowl on her face. "Why are you bleeding?"

I bring my hand up to look at it. "I got into a fight." I calmly say with a shoulder shrug.

"I'll get the first-aid kit." Garnet leaves to grab said item.

"Come here." Pearl leads me to the couch over by the door and sits down with me.

"Here."

"Thank you Garnet." Pearl thanks the gem and grabs some needle and wire to stitch me up. "Can't you be careful for once?" she asks me.

While she continues to look for the necessary items, I take a long look at her. Seeing how she is, how everyone I know is, I can't afford to be careful for myself. Cautious yes, but not careful.

"No." she looks at me. "I can't."

 **A little short but in fact this was an on the spot rewrite for me to make. Originally this chapter was supposed to be the next part in the series but I decided to go off-screen for once. I realized that while I really want to get to the later parts of the series, I guess I should leave some moments for rest and recuperation to occur.**

 **I hope this chapter may have also answered some questions you guys may have had or cleared some things up.**

 **Tell me what you guys think about this. To be honest, I think it sucks. Filler stuff like this isn't something I'm necessarily good at so I hope this came out alright despite that. I wanted to get through this quickly so sorry for some errors because I did this in almost one sitting.**

 **As always, have fun reading.**


	15. 14 An Indirect Kiss

These last few of weeks have been hell. I always hated being held up on bed like this and it's still just as annoying as the times before. My hand wasn't too serious, just a few stitches and tight bandaging and it healed up nicely. However even though I was incapacitated until my injuries and bones heal, I didn't miss anything too major when it came to helping out the gems and all.

In fact, first on the list of interesting things I missed had to be when Steven and Sadie pranked Lars because he was a lazy jerk and left Sadie to do all the work with some super hot and spicy flake concoction that makes a person feel like their mouth is on fire when they ingest it. I won't bother going too into details but I feel it was just deserved for Lars in the long haul you know.

Next, Steven was looking for some band mates for some festival thing going on and before he could get some people, the gems had to go and get some time-traveling hourglass device from a place that only opens once every hundred years or so. Now I don't know what happened down there exactly but the forlorn, freaked out, and confused faces on all my friends was pretty evident that things didn't go exactly as planned. From there explanation on the situation, a bunch of Stevens just started popping up out of nowhere and started fighting until one of them broke one of the supposed hourglasses and they all just… died, except for our Steven. Needless to say, the gems were confused, but I wasn't.

* * *

" _You said the Stevens just kept fighting and living until one of them broke one of the hourglasses. If I had to guess, that was the time-traveling device you guys were looking for. At one point in the future, Steven obtained the time-traveling device and used it, albeit a bit recklessly if it caused the situation you guys described, and then decided to go back to the original. That Steven found out what's happening and decided to break it, destroying himself and all other future versions of himself. Why? Because he and any other future Steven's all hailed from a future that no longer existed. A future that had the device. But because he broke it…" I trail off._

" _Then all future versions were rendered null and void because the catalyst for their future versions were destroyed before they could have ever formed in the first place!" Pearl explains excitedly, happy on how it's all so clear._

 _I nod, "That's why we have no memory of our Steven picking up the time-traveling device in the first place, because a version of him prevented the misery from happening before it could ever happen in the first place." I finish off the explanation and take a sip of water from my place on the bed._

" _Wooooooooow." Steven draws out his awe on the situation._

" _Whoa." Amethyst says as well._

" _Impressive." Garnet says. Not sure if she meant me or Steven but I don't pry._

" _you've watched enough shows and played enough games as I have, you kinda get a feel for this kind of thing." I finish downing my water before looking to Steven. "So, Steven. Got any ideas for your band?" I ask him._

 _He looks down for a second with a finger to his chin before he gasps loudly and looks at all of us around him. After getting a good look at all of us, he turns to me with a wide-grin and stars in his eyes. "Actually…"_

* * *

And the Crystal Gems as a band were formed. Amethyst was on the drums, Garnet had a keyboard guitar, Pearl played a violin surprisingly well considering the myriad of instruments we played and I was still able enough to play Bass. My arm may be broken and in a cast but the fingers still work. It was all going pretty good during our performance and all but Pearl and I both agreed things got a little weird when Steven mentioned how he watched himself die. _'For a kid, he's pretty tough I'll give him that.'_

Next what happened was Steven accidentally popped a bubble that was carrying a monsters gem and released it from its prison, thankfully not the one I bubbled, and proceeded to befriend it. Things were looking alright at first although it hissed to high hell and back when it came near me. Almost burned me with its acidic spit but Steven was able to calm it down, somewhat. When it came time to go and grab another artifact of sorts, the gems, and that includes the bug gem too, went to go grab a falling star apparently while I chilled on the home front. When they got back, Steven was a bit somber and sad but the gems were ecstatic. Why? Because for Steven he had to bubble his friend after it got poofed; for the gems, Steven bubbled a gem. In all my time I've been here, I've never seen Steven do anything major in the magic department. I've never even seen him summon his weapon, or shield apparently as the others have mentioned, and the fact he can bubble now is pretty big. Of course to me it wasn't as much a major hit to me as one would think, considering at the time I was almost dead but that's beside the point.

Right now things have been pretty calm the past few days so without much to do, I'm playing Mass Effect 2 and am about to embark on the suicide mission.

"I thought it over. I've minimized the risks but I'm still nervous and that's always makes me talk too much it's a defense mechanism and its stupid and people who just see the helmet can't see my expressions so I have to make it clear what I'm-"

"And there goes to helmet." I say with a smile.

"What I'm… feeling." Tali says uneasily before she tackles Shepard onto the bed and proceeds to-

"Marcus!"

I fly off the bed, fall to the ground and rip the power cord out of the wall.

"I WASN'T DOING ANYONE!" I yell out. I wince at my choice of words.

A few seconds of silence is the reply from my… rash actions. Catching my breath, I peak over the bed to see everyone standing on the ground floor and for some reason Amethyst looks… off.

"Sooooo, what's going on?" I ask with a smile, trying to hide the awkwardness of the situation I just put us all in.

"Amethyst broke her gem." Garnet explains.

"Aw c'mon, it's not that ba-"

"WHAT!?" I cry out and in a single bound, I jump over the bed and second floor before landing roughly in front of everyone. I ignore the tightness in my chest. _'Rib still hasn't fully healed but that's not important now.'_ "Show me.

"C'mon its not that-"

The glare I give her and the proximity of my face right in front of her causes her to freeze. "Now."

"Uhhhh, oh, uh, okay." She says weakily and pulls down her shirt a little. Looking at her gem, it's true. It's cracked.

"Oh god." I quietly say and place my hand against my head. "What do we do?" I ask them. Of all the time I've been dealing with gems during my lone wolf stint awhile back, I never came up with the conscience or idea of repairing a cracked gem.

"We were planning to head over to a special garden fountain that once belonged to Rose Quartz." Garnet says.

"A fountain? What's so special about a fountain?" I ask.

"Oh Marcus. This fountain is no ordinary fountain. See another ability Rose had was that her tears were imbued with special healing properties that are perfect for healing a cracked gem." Pearl explains happily. "Including, maybe aaaaa… humans injured body?" she asks with a sly smile. I look down at my broken arm and feel the pain in my back.

"Yeah okay, I see your point." I agree with them. I walk over to my jacket and pull out one of my Beretta's and slip it under my belt behind me and turn back to them. "So, where to?"

* * *

"And in the center of the garden- Rose's Fountain, overflowing with her healing, lacrimal essence!" Pearl continues to go on about the fountain even though we've already made it.

"Sounds pretty cool." I reply as I look around at the landscape. "Hopefully it's still running. I'm getting fidgety sitting around all day and this cast itches." I complain. It definitely sucks wearing this thing so if these tears are as great as they think they are, I can get rid of it soon. However another question comes up in my mind. "Wait, if Steven's mom could heal things with her tears, then why are we going to this fountain? Don't we just need to get him to cry?" I ask them, although I get an uneasy look right after I finish talking. "That sounded a lot better in my head." I whisper to myself.

"Well we tried but-"

"I guess I'm just too manly." Steven interrupts Pearl as he lightly flexes.

"Didn't you cry about snakes a few days ago?" I ask him with a deadpan look.

"They have no arms!" he cries out but sadly no tears.

"In any case, we don't need Steven to cry. We have the fountain!" she happily yells.

"I don't see it." Garnets comments.

"Yeah I don't either. It's empty. Do we have to go somewhere or…" I begin to say until someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and spot a massive rounded collection of huge thorn brambles. "Oh… I'm guessing that's it." I point lazily to it.

"Wha..." Pearl gasps at seeing the state the fountain is in.

Amethyst says something but I can't understand her. From the way its spoken, I feel it's something like speaking backwards. _'I would be more impressed with that if her life force wasn't damaged. That would be a pretty cool talent to have.'_

"Now, now! Let's keep it together! Our memories of Rose can't be tainted by some overgrown brambles!" Pearl says a bit uneasily and chuckles the same way too. I walk close to them and Pearl pulls me close. "Look at them. They're a mess without her guidance. Directionless, pathetic, clinging things." Pearl continues to say as she grabs onto me a little tighter.

' _Why do I feel like your describing yourself now Pearl?'_ My train of thought gets cut off as Pearl grabs my head with both hands.

"It's going to be okay, Marcus." She says hysterically as she looks me in the eye.

To say I feel awkward is an understatement. "Um, okay." _'I wasn't aware I was freaking out.'_

"Y-you really think so?"

"Uhhh, yeah, yeah sure. Listen," I say and gently pry her off me and nudge her to Garnet who nods. "Why don't you two, go on ahead and looks for the fountain while I," I gesture to Steven and Amethyst, where the former is trying to make tears come out of his eyes. "Stay here and make sure those two don't get hurt. Okay?"

"But we-"

"Hey! Is that an opening?" I quickly point behind her.

"Where?!" she turns around and jogs to the light shining through the brambles.

I let out a breath of air and turn to Garnet, "Make sure she's alright, okay?" I ask her.

She looks at me for a second before looking behind me, "Do the same to them, and you got a deal." She says and extends her hand to a handshake.

"Deal." I agree and shake hands with her. She turns around and follows after the slightly hysterical gem.

"Healing tears!" I hear Steven straining to force tears out of his face.

"Steven stop that or you'll get a hernia. Or an aneurysm." I warn him to stop and he does but with a slightly depressed look.

Amethyst begins to speak gibberish again, leaving Steven and I with equally stumped looks on our faces.

"Amethyst, we can't understand you. Either write it out or play charades." I tell her. She gets an annoyed look before it turns to a happy one, like she got an idea. I find it confusing that she slaps herself… at first but when she drags her fingers down her face under her eyes, I get it.

"Pain can make one cry."

"And he gets it in one." I comment to him. Amethyst shakes her head in agreement on what Steven said.

"Where is pain?" He says and thinks it over. I look around for a second and the obvious choice is all around us.

"I imagine these brambles are something we can use. But we use them is another matter-" I stop talking as I see Steven slowly reach towards one of the thorns with one of his fingers outstretched as the other hand covers his face. At first, it seemed like it would work but when the brambles start to move on their own terms, that's when I step in. "Steven!" I jump towards him.

"Huh?" he questions as he uncovers his eyes to see the brambles moving towards him. Before he can move, I push him out of the way but that means one other thing.

*Whip*

I was in their attack range.

"AHHHHHH! FUCK! ARRRG! God damnit!" I curse like crazy and scream as the plants attack connected with my face, forcing me to fall back and cover my face with my good forearm.

"Amethyst! Steven!"

"Marcus! What's going on?" I hear the voices of Pearl and Garnet make their way towards.

"I-I-I don't know! One moment I was standing there and the next…!" Steven trails off as I continue to roll on the ground.

"Fuck." I whisper to myself.

"Here. Let me take a look." I hear Pearls voice as she lays her hands on me to keep me from thrashing about. I stop and take a deep breath before moving my arm. The cold air stings my wound but I start to breathe a bit more quickly as I realize I can't see anything.

It's all black.

The gasps of more than a few people lead me to believe it isn't pretty.

* * *

"How bad is it?" Marcus groans out from his laying position on the ground. As soon as Marcus removed his arm, Amethyst turned Steven away so he wouldn't see the bloody injury. Garnet lets out a hurt hiss but Pearl is the one most vocal.

"There's no question." She turns back to Garnet with an angry but determined scowl on her face. "We need to get into the fountain. Garnet, get us into there." Pearl orders the large gem and points to a large rock. Garnet nods and heads over to it as Pearl looks at Marcus more closely. "Hold still Marcus." She says and takes off her sash before wrapping it around Marcus's eyes carefully.

"Ah!"

"Sorry." She quickly apologizes and carefully tightens the makeshift bandage. "There."

Marcus slowly leans up, "So I assume… I'm blind until we get to the fountain?" He asks.

"Yes." She says with sadness in her voice and her head aimed to the ground.

"Hmmm… alright." He quietly says with no emotion and stands up. "I'm going to need a guide."

"I have you." Pearl wraps her arms around his good one and pulls him to Garnet as she punches a rock through at the vines.

"I needed that. This way." She says to everyone and leads the group through the opening in the brambles. Slowly but carefully, the group makes their way to the fountain, Garnet keeping her gauntlets ready in case any more surprises come forth, Pearl hold onto Marcus tightly to make sure nothing injures him further, and Amethyst does the same to Steven.

"This isn't right." Garnet says as they come to a large opening in the brambles that wasn't made by the rock, almost as if the brambles tried to touch the fountain but couldn't. Steven stands next to Garnet and peers to see the fountain. "The fountain isn't running."

"Darn it! What's wrong with it?" Pearl says as she leads Marcus over to the fountain and lays him against the outer ring.

"I'm not sure."

"Is that Mom?" Steven asks as he looks up at the statue of his mom in the center of the fountain. "Oh, oh, I'm getting emotional! I think it's happening! Uh, I'm really feeling it! Who do I heal first?!" He quickly asks to no one in particular.

"Amethyst." Marcus says instantly.

"But-"

"No. Her gem breaks, she's gone for good. My pain can heal with time. Amethyst… Now." He firmly says with no room for argument whatsoever. There is a few tense seconds before Steven quickly moves to Amethyst and leans over her, straining to cry while Pearl and Garnet watch. The next few seconds are filled with Steven grunting and trying to cry but to no avail.

"Ah, come on! I had it!" Steven cries out as the moment passes.

Pearl lets out a sigh before placing her hand to the bridge of her nose. "Steven, it's fine. Just- just stay here and watch over them. We'll find out what's wrong with the fountain." She says in an almost tired tone at the situation.

"No, no. Wait! I can still do it!" Steven tries to reason but something else catches their attention. Amethyst's gemstone crack enlarges, making her fall into pieces that are connected by a small lines of skin. Garnet lets out a hiss at seeing her fellow gem in such a state. Garnet and Pearl start to leave but Steven chases after them to try and convince them of his ability. "Wait, wait! It might still happen! Guys?" Unfortunately they have no time for chances with Steven and head off further in to find the reason for the dry fountain. He lets out a sad sigh and sits next to his fellow human with a depressed huff. "I'm sorry Marcus." Steven says as they both lay against the fountain. "About earlier, I… I just thought that if I cried-"

"Don't." Marcus cuts Steven off. "Don't apologize to me. It wasn't your fault."

"But-"

"No!" Marcus sternly tells him. "Steven I don't need your apology. Why? Because you didn't send those brambles to attack. You make have provoked them but you had no intention whatsoever to see me get hurt." He tells his fellow hybrid human and changes his tone to a quieter one. "I know you man. In the time I've known you, you've never wanted to cause me no ill will so if you apologize for something you think you did, I won't accept it because I know you never wanted it." He says, continuing to look forward before he looks to Steven despite his blindness. "You're a good kid, man. I'm not gonna stop caring or protecting you because of this." He gestures to his eyes.

Steven sniffs a little before surprising Marcus with a hug. "Thank you."

"No problem man." He pats Steven on the back and gets comfortable against the fountain until he feels another hand on his shoulder. "Thanks Amethyst."

She talks.

"Still can't understand you… but thanks." He pats her hand although to his confusion she sounds farther away than where her hand is.

She talks some more and tries to get Steven attention, pointing to her tangled up body parts.

Fed up with the whole situation, he snaps. "I can't understand you!" He yells, stopping Amethysts bouncing around. "I don't understand anything! Why is everyone acting so strange? Why can't I-" He stops his ranting and looks at the statue of his mother. "Why can't I cry?!"

"Why can't I cry?" The area echoes Steven's words back to everyone.

"It's just... I mean, I don't know how to feel about you, but everyone else does. I wish I could have met you then this place would make me sad, and I could cry healing tears, like you." He says sadly as he curls up in the flower bed at the base of his mothers statue.

Marcus looks down and thinks, _'The others expect some things from you Steven, because they knew your mother. They don't know mine, so they don't expect a lot from me. And yet, I can do more from her than you can. I don't know if it's because I'm older or not but… I'm sorry you feel this way, Steven. I wish I could help but-'_

*Shing*

"Contact!" In one quick movement, Marcus proves his effectiveness by slicing one of the bramble bushes trying to advance on him in his sitting position with his Katana. He jumps up to his feet, ignoring the pain in his chest as Amethyst starts hooting and screaming at the sudden group of enemies. "Steven! Amethyst! To the fountain!" he yells and slices another bramble bush behind him.

"On it!" Steven confirms and goes to grab the pieces of Amethyst while the bushes focus on the bigger threat.

Without his eyes, Marcus has to rely on his other sense even more. Thankfully, it proves very effective for him as the bushes make a lot of rustling noise. However he also has to be careful not to hit his allies. Twisting around, he delivers and angled cut to another bush behind him before continuing on till he brings it up behind him to cut another. Twirling around, he cuts two more off the top and kicks another away from him.

"Marcus! Get into the fountain! They can't get us in here!"

"I hope your right." Marcus mutters to himself and slices two more in one stroke before going into the direction he heard Steven's voice. "Woah!" Unfortunately he forgot the barrier around the fountain and trips over, dropping his katana and rolling along the bowl like shape of the fountain before crashing into something soft.

"Are you alright?" Steven asks Marcus after the tumble he took.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Just a little sore but nothing serious." He tells Steven of his condition. The sword slide's down the fountain, reverberating down the whole way loudly. He quickly reaches over and grabs before holding it up. "They aren't getting in?"

"No they can't." Steven confirms what he said but more sadly this time as Amethyst's gem cracks even more, making her form start to glitch out like a computer screen.

"Amethyst, Marcus, I'm sorry!" he apologizes to the two. "I can't do anything right. Now I'm going to lose you, and it's all my fault." He cries out.

Amethyst glitches again and she speaks. Albeit they can't understand her, but the way she said it means she's trying to comfort him.

Steven hugs Amethyst in return. "Please let me be a magic healer." He cries lowly, and this time for real. A tear finally falls from his eyes after so much trying and hits Amethyst's gem with an audible 'splash' making him gasp.

Unfortunately, Amethyst's gem stays cracked, meaning his tears aren't healing whatsoever.

"Oh, come on!" He yells out in frustration.

"Damnit." Marcus tightens his grip on his sword, almost opening the stitches on his hand, and prepared to fight his way out.

What stops him though is a massive rumbling sound, making them all look around for what it is. For Steven and Amethyst they can't find the source. For Marcus, he hears and feels it coming from… under him?

Before anyone can comprehend what's happening, the fountains water flows fourth, simulating tears from Rose's statue as the water washes over them, growing roses on the bushes, making all the brambles disappear.

* * *

Water. My entire body is completely engulfed in water as I'm suddenly thrown about in the fountain. I swallow a good chunk of the water before getting my breathing under control and I feel… great.

I feel awesome. The stiffness in my left arm is gone and I only feel constricted by the cast, there's no pain in my chest and the soreness in my spine is completely gone. Kicking my feet and swinging my arms about, I manage to swim to the surface.

I break the surface and inhale a large gust of air before steadying myself on the water's surface. Carefully I swim to the edge of the fountain and pull my top half over the edge of the fountain.

"Marcus!" Pearls voice cuts through my breathing and I feel her arms on me, pulling me completely out of the water and laying me on the ground. "Here. Let me get this off you." She grabs the sash on my face and slowly untangles it until she pulls it off completely. I start to freak out a little because I still see darkness before I realize my eyes are still closed. I slowly but carefully I blink my eyes open, wincing at little at the sensitivity they have because they just got repaired and the brightness of the sun.

It's all blinding white at first but some things start to take form. I see clouds, the sun, some birds and-

I freeze at the sight. "Oh my god." I whisper out as I get a perfect glimpse of Pearl's face. All this time I was just so focused on staying alive, protecting my friends and living that I never… realized how beautiful one of them was. Time almost slows down for me as I stare. _'Wow. I never realized… just how blue her eyes were. I knew she had blue but… I never paid attention to the shade. It's… perfect for her.'_

"Are you okay?" Her voice seems angelic to me as I process her words.

"Yeah, I'm fine… but…"

"But what?"

"I… I just… never realized how… beautiful you looked." I say, my mouth speaking like it has a mind of its own.

"Oh! Uhhhh! Um…. Thank you." She says with a very noticeable blush and turns away from me. Slowly I stand up and see Garnet walking to us.

"You alright, Marcus?" she asks. Pearl gets up as well and looks to me but doesn't look directly at me, just a sideways glance.

I look down at my wet cast. "Grrrrr!" I growl out and bend my arm straight, breaking the cast as it splinters and chips away. Using my free hand, I tear off the remains of the cast and flex my once trapped arm. The bones pop in several places and the muscles are stiff but I have full functionality again. Grabbing the bandage at my midsection, I tear it off as well and toss it away. Poking around my chest for any points of pain, I smile when I find none and look to my stabbed hand. Rolling the bandage off, my stitches clink to the floor once their free from the confines as well as the ones on my head. No scar whatsoever is present on my body and I feel better than I possibly could. As a test, I step forward and throw a few punches and kicks in various directions, as well as twisting and flipping my body around for any noticeable points of resistance or pain.

I find none.

I look back to Garnet with a smile, "Oh, I'm more than okay."

"Good." He says with a smile and Pearl looks away with a blush.

"Did you see what I did?" Steven yells out to Garnet and Pearl as Amethyst walks up to me.

"Actually I couldn't see anything. Ow!"

"Dude, no." Amethyst kicks me in the shin at my horrible joke.

"It was magic!" He continues on despite my bouncing on one foot. "My tears brought the fountain back to life and saved Amethyst and Marcus!"

Garnet and Pearl look at each other. "Actually I'm pretty sure me and Garnet unplugging the clogged chamber brought the fountain back to life."

"We saved Amethyst." The two gems proceed to put down the kids moment of happiness.

"You don't think my crying was a little related to that?" he asks unsure.

"Oh Steven, you don't have healing tears. You'll never have any real magic powers, and we don't want anything more to do with you." Pearl harshly says as Steven looks at her with a horrified expre-

"Dude."

* * *

Steven and Connie look to me. "She did not say that." I firmly tell him. "I was there. I know she didn't say that."

"No, but that's what it felt like." He says sadly.

"Is that why you've been so down?" Connie asks him. Steven simply shrugs his shoulders.

"Yes, it has. He's been mopy ever since the trip and back." I comment and take another bite of my sandwich.

"Oh. You can have your juice back." Connie offers to our sad friend.

"Nah, that's okay." He refuses. He sniffles a little and sighs. "Everyone expects me to be like my mom. What if I never get those powers?" He asks her.

"Then you'll be like me. That's not so bad." Connie offers to him.

"But if I don't have powers, then I can't hang out with Amethyst or Garnet or Pearl or you Marcus!" he says with tears almost appearing in his eyes."And I-I can't go on missions!" He finishes as he grips his pants tight. Not wanting to see the kid disappointed I go to say something to reassure him but Connie beats me to it.

"You don't need any powers to be here with me." She sincerely says with a smile. Connie begins to lean forward in what I think is an attempt to kiss Steven so I close my eyes and remain absolutely still so my presence doesn't kill the mood. "Ow. Ugh." I open my eyes to see Connie grab her face in pain.

"What's wrong?" Steven asks in a concerned tone.

"You alright?" I ask as well.

"I think-" She begins to say but lets out a breath before continuing. "There's just— something wrong with my glasses." She says and takes off her glasses. Steven and I wait to see if everything is alright with her but she just looks even more freaked out. "My... My eyes."

"What about your eyes?" I ask in concern.

"I-I-I can see!" She reply's in surprise.

"What?" Steven and I both ask in confusion.

"I can see without my glasses!" She says almost disbelievingly.

"What? Hows that possible?" I ask as well, not 100% percent sure how her eyes suddenly got fixed.

"Did I heal your eyes? But how?" Steven asks out loud. We think for a second before I notice the tip of the juice boxes straw is almost sparkling.

"Nooooo." I draw out the no in disbelief. _'He can't.'_

They both stare at the juice box as well before Connie drops it in.

"The juice box!" Steven gasps out loud at the revelation. "I don't have healing tears, I have healing spit!" He proclaims loudly with happiness and his arms raised high into the sky.

"No way." I say, still not believing the whole thing.

"What am I going to tell my parents? What am I going to tell my optometrist?!" Connie asks us.

' _Holy crap that's right. How will she explain this to her parents?'_ I think.

"I don't even know! Oh thank you Connie!" He brushes off her questions and hugs her. "Lion, let's go tell the Gems, they're never going to believe this!" He says happily and heads off down the hill towards the temple with Lion trailing after him.

' _I guess because I was here, he didn't think to include me since I saw firsthand.'_ I think and look to Connie.

She lets out a sigh as she takes her glasses off. "What am I going to do?" she says quietly to herself. Reaching over, I grab one of the lenses while it's still in her hands and rub it a little, trying to think of what to do. Connie uses her other hand and pops out the lens she has. Following the same thing, I pop the other one off and allow her to put them on. Take a step in front of her and stare directly at her eyes. As long as you're not actively looking at her glasses, I'd say she can pass off at wearing fake glasses. I give her a nod. "Thanks Marcus."

"No problem." I reply and stand next to her again. We take a moment to stare over Beach City before I speak up, "Hey Connie?" I don't look to her but I know she's looking at me. "Listen, if you ever need a friend or something weird or… complicated comes up," I look to her, "You know me and Steven got your back right?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Good." I say and the conversation pauses. For a few seconds we stand there thinking about things: Connie with her new eye sight and me with… someone else. "I better get going. I should go confirm what Steven tells the gems, to make sure they don't think he's lying."

"Yeah, that's probably best." She walks back to our picnic area and grabs the blanket before placing it in the basket. "I should get home too. Don't want to make my parents worry and… get ready for the hiding."

"Yeah, good luck with that." I wish her luck as I begin walking away.

"Thanks for your help." she calls out to me. I reply with a wave before walking back to the temple with my hands in my pocket.

I walk for what feels like hours but really it's only been a half hour before the temple is in sight as I walk along the beach. The whole time, only one person occupies my thoughts after hearing Steven retell the story. "Pearl…"

I stop and stand there for a few seconds before I continue walking. I don't know what it is but lately I've felt… strange around Pearl and it wasn't just when my eyes got fixed. I care about her and the others as much as I would be willing to give my life for them but… with her I feel… different.

' _When Sugilite hurt her… I felt… angry. Pure anger and rage welling up inside me and I wanted nothing more than to tear her apart with my bare hands. The same that could be said to that holo-version of herself. They hurt her so much and all I wanted was to-'_ I stop and clench my fist tightly, almost drawing blood. My breathing becomes deep and heavy before I calm down and unclench my fist. I continue to my pace as I make it to the stairs of the temple. _'I don't know what it is but… I think I might like it. Is this what Greg and Rose felt like… Is this what my mom and dad felt? The need to protect someone you care about deeply?'_ I question myself as I make it to the door. Looking in, I see Steven already telling the gems about his power with dramatic arm flailing as Lion sleeps near my weapons cases.

I smile as I take in all their forms. _'Garnet… Amethyst… Steven…'_ I remember our friend from earlier, _'…Connie… even you Lion.'_ My eyes settle on Pearl as she listens intently to Steven's tale with a beautiful smile on her face. I grip the handle to the door. _'Regardless of how I feel, I know who my friends are. You've been straight with me so far and as long as things continue how they are, nothing will keep me from protecting you.'_

I walk in, getting everyones attention.

' _Nothing.'_

 **And another one is down. Now I hope this chapter somewhat cements just how Marcus feels about some of the gems. Glad to see some of you managed to get what I was going for at first. I didn't want to make things super obvious by having mental monologue dialogues happen between the gems. I've always found those to be super give-aways and opted for a more subtler approach. I hope that was alright.**

 **In any case, this was fun to write and I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited for the next few chapters.**

 **Also folks, before when I said I wanted to do other types of fanfics, I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure I might have accidentally gave off the impression of only doing cartoon shows type fanfics. I don't want to be restricted to only just cartoons, even though I still got some ideas for a large portion of them, but to also work with other fic types, like video games and anime. Some examples are as such: You want Marcus to be the youngest Spartan in the halo universe, I can probably do that; A Renegade in My Life as a Teenage Robot, I'm sure of it; an operative for Sector V in the Kids Next Door, good; A complicated Jedi Padawan in Star Wars The clone wars; An assassin in Akame ga Kill, sure; A Kamui user in Kill La kill; A trapped player in Sword Art Online; A person who doesn't care in Black Lagoon; A hunter in RWBY; A member of Hellsing in the anime Hellsing Ultimate; A person who works for or against Zero in Code Geass; TMNT; Teen Titans (Not Go!); Danny Phantom; Fallout; Mass Effect; Kung Fu Panda; How to Train Your Dragon; Zootopia; It doesn't matter.**

 **If I've seen it, I've more than likely come up with a character to add, background to go along with it and such. The ones mentioned above, as well as most others have mentioned, are just examples of what I could come up with. If you have an idea for a fic you want me to eventually write up on or a suggestion, go ahead and say so. I don't think I know anything I can't come up with for but I do prefer things with actual plots to them. Just wanted to get that out there for you guys.**

 **Also I would have mentioned Dragon Ball or My Little Pony but I only saw a few dozen episodes years ago of Dragon ball and never got fully into it; and I tried a My Little Pony fic on a different site awhile back but it failed. That's why I update so frequently, so I don't fail or lose interest again. I hope this clears up some things about me and why I'm so frequent.**

 **Also guys take heed about some of the Anime I mentioned above. Some of them can be lewd, very explicit, tons of cursing and lots and lots of blood and guts. I don't want to scar anyone alright?**

 **With that cleared up and off my mind, I wish you guys good fortune and have fun reading.**


	16. 15 Mirror Gem

Things have been kinda awkward to say the least. Ever since I said Pearl was beautiful at the fountain she hasn't looked me the same since and I the same to her. I just don't know what the hell it is exactly and it's frustrating not knowing what the hell's going on. I don't do well with lack of information. I prefer to be in the need to know department.

"Here."

However despite my inner torment I was still roped into helping gather stuff for Steven. Still not sure what it is but I feel like its school related with all the junk Pearl and I got.

"Yep, it's all coming together." Steven says as he stares intently at the pile.

"So, how do we begin our "school"?" Pearl asks him.

"Wait, that's what we're dealing with here?" I ask in confusion. _'Seriously, school? Ugh. I had enough it back home. No thank you._ '

"Yeah and… Ugh... I... I don't know!" He begins to freak out a little at the prospect of not knowing what to do. "This is everything Connie told me. Why do I never ask follow-up questions?! Who will teach little Stevie now!?" He cries in almost complete hopelessness.

"Teach you?!" Pearl lets out a happy gasp at the idea. "Steven! If only I had known _that_ 's what you really wanted!"

*Clap* "Aaannnd with that I'm out." I proclaim and head to the door. "You two have fun… schooling."

"Wha-?! You don't want to learn school with me?" Steven asks me as I walk out the door.

I lean back in and give him a deadpan stare, "Steven, I had enough of school when I went through it with the public. I sure as hell don't want to deal with homeschooling. You have fun while I get as far away from here as possible." With my thoughts voiced, I close the door.

* * *

"Not as far as one would think." I mutter to myself as I sit in the driver seat of my truck. Pretty much when I went to school, it was almost social nightmare for me what with my reserved and silent demeanor, not to mention my gems, and people just loved to pick on me. After some complications, I finally left school. I know its important and all but I never found much interest in it. I guess it's because of my gem physiology that I was able to retain information more.

Now with how awkward things have been, I went ahead and decided to just sit in my truck and organize my thoughts. _'Why the hell did I say she was beautiful? I mean, I know she is- I mean-'_ "Fuck." I groan and smack my head on the rim of my steering wheel. "She is beautiful but why the hell did I say it out loud?" I say with my eyes closed. _'She's not human. She may have been here far longer than I have but she still doesn't have a full grasp of much of human culture… or does she? Is that why she won't look at me? Is that…'_ I think as my thoughts trail off. "God damnit!" I yell and slam my fists into the dashboard. "Why is this so fucking hard?!" I yell and slam my palms into the dashboard before sitting back in a huff. _'Peal and I used to just talk and it would be easy. Nothing awkward as much, just learning and teaching each other about what we know. Now… why the hell did I have to fuck things up?'_ I think with my eyes closed. _'Oh but I do know. Despite my experience, despite what I've been through, I'm still a teenager. A stupid hormonal teenager who couldn't keep his big mouth shut.'_ Releasing a dejected sigh, I decide to get my mind off the situation. "Wonder if my stuffs still here." I reach over to the glove compartment. "Better be or there'll be hell to pay." Opening the door, I pull out the revolver I have in there. "There you are." I say as I examine the weapon. The weapon I have holding in my hands right now is none other than a revolver but to be more specific, I have with me is a Colt Anaconda, chambered in .44 magnum rounds along with a 8 inch barrel to go along with it. A pretty good revolver to have that I'm happy to keep in my glove compartment should I need it in a pinch. Not as powerful as the Smith  & Wesson Model 500 but this one was a bit easier to obtain myself. "Good your still here." I say to the gun before placing it back in the glove compartment along with the holster and speedloader rounds to go along with it. "Now let's see if your still here." I move to the backseat and unhook some latches to the bottom of the massive seat. Once the latches are off, I pull up the seat to reveal my next item. "Ah, good. Your still he-"

"School's out!" I look up at the sudden voice and Steven plants himself along the back side window. "Happy summer vacation, Marcus! Happy summer vacation, Beach City!" He yells through the window and takes off while holding something in his hand. "Yeah!"

"Wait, what?! Steven!" I yell after the kid and slam the seat down. Putting the latches back on, I jump out of my truck and take off after the hyper active kid. For a small one, he's surprisingly fast and I watch as he accidentally barrels into Sadie and Lars, causing them to accidentally knock over some tables and chairs.

"Er, watch where you're going, you little f..." Lars begins to say but he glances to Sadie for a second and when he sees me walking behind Steven, I give him a look that says 'care to finish that statement?' "Ssssteven!" he resigns himself to saying instead.

"Sorry! I'm just so excited for summer. Are you excited for summer? I'm so excited for summer!" He exclaims happily, despite the fact that he doesn't go to school at all and is always on vacation from school.

Sadie laughs a little at the enthusiasm that the kid possesses. "Uh, I think I'm as excited as I can get about setting up extra seating for the summer rush." She gestures to the extra tables and seats placed all around us in front of the store. "But Lars has big plans." She says to her coworker.

"You bet I do!" He says with a smile, "All those out-of-town summer babes traveling away from home without their boyfriends, if you know what I mean."

"Nope." Steven says innocently.

"And I don't want to." I mutter and pinch the bridge of my nose.

"Maybe I'll get a few numbers. Maybe I'll even... call one." He says but also a little awkwardly at the end.

"Ha! Well, yeah, maybe I'll meet a new friend." Sadie says with almost as much awkwardness to go along with it.

"That's a great idea - A special new friend to have fun on the beach with in the summer. Maybe if I keep using the mirror to guide me, I'll walk backwards into my own beach-summer-fun buddy!" He says and starts to walk backwards. "C'mon Marcus!" He waves me to go with him.

I smile at his actions and look to other two, "Well, I better go make sure he doesn't get into trouble. Sadie, see you later. Lars, good luck getting women." I say and start to walk away as he gets a small smile at my apparent compliment. "You're gonna need it!" I yell without looking back.

"Grrr! You'll see. Next time you see me, I'll be on the arm of a hot woman!" He growls to me as I continue to walk away.

"You can stop talking about it now." I faintly hear Sadie tell Lars.

Once I'm out of sight of them, I can't help but look back and raise an eyebrow at Sadie's words. _'Is there something going on there or-'_

"Nooooo!"

"Steven!" I turn back around and take off towards the boardwalk in the direction of my friends cry. My heart skips a beat as I hear tires screeching. _'No…'_ In an instant, I pass a couple buildings and round a corner to see a van with a persons head on it stopped in front of Steven. "Steven!" I yell and move over to him to make sure he's okay. "Are you alright?! Are you injured?' I quickly ask him.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine Marcus. Just… startled is all." He reassures me and pushes my arms off him.

"Good… good." I let out a relieved sigh.

"Car wash kid, what are you doing?!" I stand back up and look angrily at the van and the person leaning out of it.

"What the hell is your problem buddy?!" I yell and slam my hand on top of his hood. "You almost hit him!... And why are you driving on the boardwalk?! This isn't a sanctioned driving road!" I glare at the guy.

"I'm the mayor— I'm not going to _walk_ anywhere." He says like it's obvious.

' _Mayor? This guy?!'_ I think and take note of the man's face and the face of the head on the van to see they are the same person. _'Wow, talk about pompous and a big ego.'_

"Now, go get run over somewhere else. I'm late for a speech." He says and backs up, causing me to stumble before he begins to drive again around us, all the while his van chants his name, adding even more of my chagrin to this guy.

"May-or Dew-ey. May-or Dew-ey." It repeats over and over again.

"Big ego, self-absorbed, in politics… yep, not surprised I don't like him." I comment as I cross my arms.

"Hahahahaha." I hear Steven laugh.

"Thanks man." I reply.

"That wasn't me."

"Wait what?" I ask confused as I look at him.

The laugh happens again and it sounds like him but… it's not him. _'Wha…?'_ I look around for the source since it sounds very close.

"Huh? Oh! Marcus look!" Steven catches my attention and shows me the mirror he's been carrying. Looking in close, I only see my reflection for a second before it starts to whir a bit.

"Yep, not surprised I don't like him." I jump back a bit as the mirror replays my earlier comment on the mayor.

"Whoooaaaa." I'm in awe at the sort of recording device in front of me.

"You work! This is so cool!" He voices his happiness of the device. "What's it like being a mirror?" He asks it.

The mirror whirs a bit before replaying Steven's words. "You work!"

"So you can repeat stuff?"

Mirror Steven chuckles. "Yeah!"

"Wow, that's cool." I say. "Like some sort of self-conscious recording device. Nice." I say with a nod.

"Thanks man." The mirror repeats me.

"Hello, Beach City, my friends!" Steven and I shift our attention from the mirror to the beach to see the mayor has set himself up for his speech. Steven gets a wide grin on his face and runs over to the crowd with the mirror. Sighing, I move to catch up to him. "It's great to be here to celebrate the coming season. A warm summer breeze wafts through the air."

"PBHT!" Steven proceeds to make a fart noise as I stand next to him. His action causes the crowd to snicker quietly.

"We all look forward to the sounds of the summer season..." Mayor Dewey continues with his speech unperturbed by the action.

"PBHT!" Looking to Steven, I see it's the mirror that's making the noise.

"... the smells of the busy boardwalk..."

"PBHT!"

"... the hot, wet ocean wind..."

"PBHT!"

"... the time to take that pressure that's built up all year and just let it out." By this point I am really close to losing my shit at how perfect the mayor's speech is in tandem with the mirrors actions.

"PBHT!"

The crowd and I completely lose it and laugh out loud of the whole situation, annoying the mayor at how his speech has been interrupted.

"Wow, you picked that up fast." I barely hear Steven say to the mirror through all my laughing. I quickly usher him away so we don't get blamed for the whole thing.

* * *

"PBHT!"

"Hahahahahaha ha haha haaa! Oh god! Please stop, that was too good." I cry out as the mirror does it again. A few hours later, its night, and the whole thing back at the speech was pure gold. I'm pretty sure you couldn't plan something like that if you wanted to. Thankfully the mirror ceases and I manage to calm down. "Haha, ha, ha. Oh man. That was good. You guys did awesome. And you…" I point to the mirror with a grin, "You my friend; you did good. Nice one back there." I compliment it.

"Thanks man." The mirror repeats what I said before. I smile and flop on my back in the sand.

Steven lets out a short laugh at the whole situation before looking at the mirror. "You got a lot of mileage out of that joke. You're pretty funny for a mirror."

"You're pretty funny for a mirror." Mirror repeats him.

"Hahaha. I'm not a mirror."

"You're pretty funny for a- Steven!" To our surprise, the mirror first uses what Steven just said earlier but cuts off before it could say 'mirror' and uses my earlier yell for 'Steven' when I thought he got hit by a car.

"Whoa."

Steven gasps loudly, "You made something new! Say something else!"

"Steven- is- a new friend." The mirror impresses me even more by using cut pieces from earlier conversations such as me and Sadie.

"Really?" Steven asks with a small blush on his face.

"Hahaha. Yeah!" The mirror replies.

"You're my friend, too!" He proclaims to mirror. I smile and pat his back.

"Dang Steven, you continue to impress me. You made friends with a mirror." I say to him.

"Marcus- is- a new friend." The mirror says to me now.

"Oh, well, nice. Thank you. I appreciate you telling me that." I say to the mirror.

"You're- Awesome." The mirror says.

"Aw, thanks."

"We got to go tell the Gems." Steven says and stands up to his feet.

"Oh yeah!" I agree and roll onto my back before jumping onto my feet. "I'm sure they'll get a kick out of this." I start to walk with him.

"Noooo!"

I almost trip over myself from the sudden screaming. I recognize the voice as Steven's but he looks just as surprised as me. _'The hell?'_ I think as I look at the mirror in my friends hand.

"Don't be shy, they'll love you." He tries to settle the mirrors worries about meeting the others.

"Noooo!" The mirror screams again only this time it echoes the no to emphasize it.

"Don't worry, they're a good audience." Steven remains oblivious to the mirrors worries and continues on. I stand there staring at the mirror as it gets farther from me, trying to come up with a reason for its panic.

' _What the hell? You do not want to meet the others?'_ My mind trails off as I decide to go after them, hopefully to make sure everything goes alright. _'I got a bad feeling about this.'_

* * *

"Man, for a small one… he sure can gain distance." I say as I trudge up the stairs and open the door.

"I-" Steven begins to say but he notices me walk in behind him. "Hey Marcus! We fixed the mirror!" He informs the gems.

"Excellent work, Steven!... Marcus." She says my name a little more quietly as she looks away.

My shoulders slumps as I rub my temple. _'God damnit.'_ Releasing a sigh at the still awkwardness, I look to see what happened here while Steven and I were gone. Looking at the tall pile of stuff Pearl and I gathered earlier, I notice a small pile of stabbed things near the base of it. The most notable is a bear and- "IS THAT MY AK?!" I ask loudly. In my haste, I brush past Steven and slide on the ground to pick up my weapon. To my utter horror, the weapon is completely useless, with a long thin slit stabbed right through the receiver. The weapon was on its last legs and with a bit of maintenance I could have made it work but now… "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?!" I scream at them with anger.

They are all silent for a second as two of the three are stunned at my outburst. Garnet simply turns to her compatriots. "I told you he would get mad."

"Well… Marcus… you see-" Pearl begins to say but I hold my hand up to stop her. The room is met with silence as I steady myself through deep breathing.

"No. You know what. I don't care for your excuses. It's not going to fix it." I say depressingly and walk over to the couch near the door.

"I thought you would mind. You said it yourself that that weapon was close to breaking anyway." Amethyst says.

"That doesn't mean I wanted it to be destroyed this way!" I yell at her, causing her to flinch. Sitting down on the couch in a huff, I take off my jacket and sling my gun on my back. I run my hands through my hair before placing them on my face. "Just… continue what you were saying before I got here. Let me… stew." I say.

"Oh right. You didn't tell me it's like a person." Steven informs the gems.

"Wait. What?" Even though I am utterly pissed right now, I can't help but notice the confusion in Pearls voice. Looking between my fingers, to my confusion all the gems are shocked at the news.

"Say 'hey.'" Steven says to mirror and points it at the gems. The mirror remains silent. "... Lil' buddy... Uh... excuse us." He says to the gems and turns around. I sit up straight and lean over to listen in. "Come on. You want to come out, don't you? You have so much to say and funny noises to share from across the ages. Are we not beach-summer-fun buddies?" Steven tries to coax the mirror to reveal itself to the gem. My instincts are still blaring to me about how this won't go well.

"PBHT!" Despite the tenseness, the mirror still manages to get a laugh out of the both of us.

"Just couldn't help yourself, huh?" He asks it.

"Just for - you - Steven! And - Marcus!" The mirror says to us and repeatedly laughs, shifting from both Steven's and mine.

"It's talking to him? It shouldn't be able to do that." I have a frown on my face as I look at the gems in my peripheral. "I-it should just be following orders..." Pearl says.

"Garnet, do something." I hear Amethyst whisper to the red gem, even through the mirrors repeated laughing.

"Steven." I slowly get up and look as Garnet walks toward us, Steven more.

" Hahaha. Noooo!" The mirrors laughing suddenly changes as it spots Garnet walking behind Steven.

"You should just give us back the mirror. It will be safer where we can watch it." Garnet practically orders Steven.

"Yeah, let's bubble it!" Amethyst proclaims loudly for all of us to hear.

"Noooo! Noooo!" The mirror continues to voice its displeasure and reluctance to go.

"Wha..."

' _What the hell is going on? Why are you so afraid of-'_

"Steven. Don't make me have to take it from you." She sternly tells him.

"Garnet, what's going on?" I ask her sternly too, slightly stepping in front of her.

"Don't worry about it Marcus." She roughly pushes me away, making me almost trip on the couch but I grab the door frame to steady myself.

I narrow my eyes at her. _'My ass I'll worry about it.'_

"Ah! It doesn't want to go with you. Don't you hear it screaming?" Steven gasps out as Garnet leans in more.

"Steven, it's just a mirror, a tool. It can't want anything." She says and reaches her hand towards the mirror, preparing to take it.

"Noooo! Noooo! Noooo! Noooo!" The mirror is freaking out at this point as it echoes 'no' over and over again, overlapping it as multiple Stevens appear on the face of the mirror. Steve finally snaps.

He lets out a growl at her intrusiveness. "It wants to be with us!" To my surpise, and everyone else's, he slaps Garnet's hand away, which hits her in the face and knocks her glasses off. Amethyst gasps loudly, extremely surprised. I flinch a little as Steven gasps when Garnet stares at him very, very angrily with her three eyes.

"Aah-aah!" He bolts out the front door. "I'm sorry!" He cries back as he goes down the stairs.

"Steven!" I call out to him in worry.

' _Seriously! What's going on?'_ I think loudly. Turning back to Garnet, I watch as she puts her glasses back on and clenches her fists. "That little boy is in big trouble." She takes a step forward but I step in, blocking her path to the door. "Move, Marcus." She says through gritted teeth.

"Not until you tell me what's going. Why don't you want Steven talking to that mirror?" I ask while pointing to where Steven left. "What. Is. It?" I growl out.

"I said, Move!" she grabs my shoulder and attempts to push me out of the way.

Good thing I anticipated that.

The second her hand touch my shoulder, I quickly grab it and twist her around, twisting her arm tightly against her back till I have a firm hold on her. "Not until you tell me!"

"Marcus!" Pearl gasps out.

"What are you doing?!" Amethyst asks me.

"Answers!" I loudly answer them. "I want to know why you guys are freaking out so much about-!"

"Let goooo!"

"Oof!" Garnet brings her leg forward and back, planting it firmly against my stomach, sending me flying out the door and slamming into the railing.

"Marcus!" I hear Pearl call out to me in concern.

The wind gets knocked hard out of me as I struggle to stand and regain my breathing. Grasping the cracked part of the wooden railing, I steady myself as I see Garnet walk out the door with a surprised Amethyst and a concerned Pearl. Garnet and I stare at each other for a few tense seconds. Taking the initiative, I lean back over the railing and fall off.

The wind immediately rushes by my ears as I faintly hear the others call out to me. Righting myself up, I land firmly on the ground on one hand and feet. Not wanting to stay here, I spot Steven's tracks in the sand and take off in a burst of speed, already out of sight before the gems could see me. I quickly manage to stop myself near my truck and take a second to collect myself. "Alright, their hiding something… but what?" I say and go to grab my- "Shit!" I curse and realize I left my jacket inside with my Beretta's. My AK is useless right now and I want something else besides my swords. "Oh!" I exclaim and throw open the passenger door to my truck. Reaching into the glove compartment, I begin to strap up with my revolver, holster and ammo. _'Geez, what am I doing? Am I really going to shoot them?'_ I think as I clip the holster to my right hip and close the passenger door.

"Fan out."

"Fuck." I quietly curse and drop to the ground, carefully rolling under my truck just as I spot Pearl's ballet shows run past where I was standing. When she's out of ear-shot, I get out from under. "Maybe not shoot… but a little intimidation can't hurt." I say and look around for Steven's tracks. While the others are around me as well, Steven's are more noticeable because of how erratic they are. Moving around carefully and quietly so I don't attract the others, hear something behind a large rock

"Are you trying to say something?" I recognize Steven's voice. Dashing forward, I vault over the rock and land next to him, surprising him. "A-Mmm!" He begins to scream but I quickly cover his mouth with my hand. Slowly, I mime for him to be quiet as Garnet runs past us. I let his mouth go when we're clear.

"It's cool man. I'm here to help." I quickly reassure him and look at the mirror. "What's going on?" I whisper to him.

"I don't know! I'm trying to-" He loudly whispers to me before the mirror begins to whir a bit as the image begins to distort.

"Away from home - Let - Me - Out!" The mirror manages to say.

"Huh?"

"We don't understand!"

"Steven! Marcus!"

"Crap." I quickly pull Steven against the rock as I hear Pearls voice far from us.

"Come on! We want to help you! What can we do?" Steven pleads to the mirror.

"C'mon. You have to give us something here." I ask of it.

The mirror whirs again and distorts before it shows an image of Steven pulling the gem from the back of the mirror. Steven turns the mirror around and we see the gem. Finally getting what we have to do, Steven and I look at each other before we nod. I move to stand in front of him and grasp both sides of the mirror firmly. He then grabs the gem and pulls on it with effort as I pull back as well. "Ah!" Steven grunts out as we both pull hard on our respective grabs. As we struggle to pull the items apart, I can't help but notice a wetness forming under me. Looking down, I see some type of circle begin to form under us from the water from the ocean.

"Uhhh, Steven?" I say to the kid uneasily at the situation. "Maybe you should- Woah!" I yelp as the opposite force against me is suddenly gone, making me fall back into the water. "Gah! Pah! Oh!" I groan as I stand up and shake some water off me. A glowing light stops me from shaking myself free of water as I see the gem Steven pulled from the mirror float in front of me. It glows for a second before it starts to take a much more larger shape. I distinctly see a humanoid form start to take place before it solidify's.

"Wha..." Steven says in awe from behind the gem creature. Whatever it is, its aiming right at me. Not wanting to take a chance, I widen my stance and-

"Thank you..." I freeze at the female voice. The gem that stands before me is an actually humanoid gem, like me and the others. My breath hitches as I stare at the all white eyes adorning her face and her entirely blue form. "You didn't-" She begins to say but loses her balance and falls forward.

"Hey!" I exclaim and quickly catch her before she hits the ground. She feels cold as I grab her but I manage to steady her. She gives me a smile in return for my action. I hear footsteps and see Steven walk next to me. "You actually talked to me. You helped me!" She voices her disbelief on our actions but seems no less than grateful. "It's Steven, right?" She asks him.

He breathes deeply before letting out a confirmed 'Mm.'

"And… Marcus, correct?" She then asks me.

"Oh! Uuuhh, yes. That's correct." I confirm after I stumble on my words.

"I'm Lapis. Lapis Lazuli." She gives us her name with a smile.

I return her smile. "Lapis huh? That's a pretty name."

' _WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?! Why did I just do that?!... Oh right, she was imprisoned and I'm trying to comfort her and I'm still bad with girls apparently.'_ I freak out in my mind for a second but manage to calm myself. Thankfully, she simply giggles at my compliment.

"Thanks. Oh. Here." She waves her hand in front of me and instantly I begin to feel dryer. Looking to her hand, a large ball of water is in her hand and I feel totally dry.

"Huh. Nice."

"Your welcome." She drops the water. "Are you really a Crystal Gem?" She asks us.

"Yeah!"

"Mm-hm." We confirm her question.

"But… you set me free." She says in disbelief, much both of our confusions, Steven's more so.

"But- Wha..."

"Lapis, what do you mean?" I ask warily to her.

"Steven! Marcus!" We flinch at the loud voice and I look past Lapis to see the others have spotted us. They immediately summon their weapons when they see Lapis.

I quickly move past Lapis and pull out my Anaconda. "Back up!" I order the gems as I aim at them. They stop in their tracks, surprised at my action.

"Marcus… we just want-"

*Click*

She stops advancing as I pull the hammer back. "Don't... move." I sternly order her as I keep my face stone-face firm, making it clear I'm not backing down.

"Wait!" I hear Steven yell out as he runs in front of us, extending his arms to both me and the gems.

"You..." I hear Lapis say behind me. I don't turn back but the sound of crashing waves and water-rushing makes me. Steven gasps as I stare in awe as Lapis raises a huge water-arm out of the ocean.

"You three knew I was in there, and you didn't do anything." Lapis begins to menacingly say as the water-arm goes higher and higher into the air. "Did you even wonder who I used to be?!" She brings the arm down onto the ground. I quickly grab Steven and pull him back just as the arm hits the gems. Amethyst and Pearl are thrown in opposite directions but Garnet is left trapped underneath the water construct.

"Steven, Marcus, run!" Pearl warns us but instead I drop Steven and turn to Lapis.

"What are you doing?" He asks the water affiliated gem.

"I'm Lapis Lazuli, and you can't keep me trapped here anymore!" She yells out her name in defiance to her status as a prisoner.

"Huh?" Steven gasps as he looks over to the gems. Pearl and Amethyst get back up but Garnet is still trapped.

"They're not going to let us leave."

"Leave?"

"What do you mean?" We ask her. Instead of instantly answering, she simply parts the ocean in half to make a path for us. "Holy…"

"Please, come with me."

"Huh?" I question.

"Where?"

"Home." She says but a little sadly.

"Home?" I mutter to myself as I try to think on what she means.

"B-b-but... B-but I... Uh..." Steven stumbles over his words and I'm not surprised. Lapis is bsacially asking him to leave the Crystal Gems, besides Greg, his only other family members.

Her hopeful demeanor changes to one of sadness at the idea of Steven not joining her. "Fine." She says crossly before letting the water path she made close. She goes to head to the water but stops when she sees me. "Marcus?" she says my name in a questioning manner, really hopeful that I'll go with her.

"You… want me… too-"

"Haaaaa!" In hour moments of contemplation, Garnet was able to bash the water-arm off her and send the remains flying towards us. She closes the distance and prepares to destroy Lapis's form with a single punch.

Everything slows down.

I watch with brutal slowness as Lapis stands there in shock at the gauntlet heading straight for her face.

Steven tries to stop her but it's obvious he can't or won't be able to.

Garnets face is morphed into a fierce determination of gritted anger as she prepares to stop this thing once and for all… Unless I intervene.

I have choice: Help Lapis, or Let Garnet bubble her.

I holster my revolver and close my eyes to gain clarity to on my choice.

I don't wait long.

* * *

"Haaaaaa-Oof!" Much too Garnets surprise, a blur moves in front of her opponent and suddenly she is sent flying back. She grunts as she hits the sand and skids along it for a second before stopping and standing up. She thinks it was Lapis that attacked but to her surprise and everyone else's, including Lapis, Marcus Stands in front of her with his left leg raised into the air. Slowly, he lowers his leg and walks a few steps away from Lapis. "Raaaah!"

"Garnet wait!" Pearl tries to stop her comrade but her warning falls on deaf ears.

Garnet runs straight at Marcus, angry at his intervention and prepared to knock some sense into him. She brings her right gauntlet up and prepares to strike him in the face but she misses. She brings her left arm up and try's to hit him but misses again. She gets angry and proceeds to let out a multitude of punches straight at the hybrid faster than the normal eye can see.

To everyone's awe, in rapid flashes of shadow movements, Marcus deftly dodges each one of Garnet's attack, his form leaving a small transparent shadow construct behind that showed his position before he moved. The useless attack pattern goes on for a few seconds before Garnet tries to punch with both arms, sealing her mistake. Marcus jumps off the ground, dodging the attack and leaving the gem open to an attack. Marcus brings both his legs close to his chest before pushing them both out, executing a double axe kick to her face.

Garnet grunts as she gets sent flying back to the others. She rolls on the ground a few times before gripping the sand tightly to stop her from moving. She stops herself in front of the others and slowly stands up, revealing her slightly cracked visor.

Marcus gets into a ready stance but Lapis places a hand on his shoulder, "We should go."

He looks back to the gems, giving each one a critical eye before he sighs. "Right." They both turn around and begin to head to the water but Marcus stops. "Hold on a second."

"What?" Lapis turns to question him but momentarily freaks out to see he's not next to her. She looks at her captors for decades to see if they got him but they are looking to the side. She looks in the direction they are looking at and sees a fresh foot trail heading around the mountain. Lapis tenses up as she sees everyone look at her. She clenches her fist, the water behind her boiling and ready to attack should they retaliate against her.

*Honk*Honk*

Everyone turns back to where Marcus left and sees him drifting around the corner and head straight for the water's edge next to Lapis. He pulls up next to her in and leans out the window.

* * *

"Get in."

"Bu- wha?" Lapis stumbles a bit on her words, no doubt surprised at seeing my truck.

"C'mon, we can gain more distance in this." I inform her and nod my head to the other side of my vehicle. She hesitantly moves at first before moving more comfortably to the passenger side door.

"Marcus!" I look back to the sand and see Steven standing next to my truck. "W-w-Where are you going?"

I purse my lips as I hit the unlock button on my truck. "I don't know man. But what I do know is that I can probably get some answers if one of us goes with her." I send a sideways glance to the others who are all tense at seeing Steven so close to us. "I don't want you to choose against your family, Steven. So I'll go and find out what she knows. You don't have to choose."

"But you-"

"Relax man, just go back to your family." I try to reassure him and go to shift gears.

"But your family!"

My hand freezes on the gear shifter. _'F-family?'_ Slowly I look to Steven with surprise plastered clear across my face.

"I think your family Marcus. Almost like a brother." He says with a smile.

I look forward, staring out into the ocean as I process what he said. _'I said I considered them family but… for him to say it back I…'_ My train of thought stops as I feel moistness run down my face. Feeling my face, I realize that I'm crying. I close my eyes and smile as I try to reign in my emotions. I let out a small chuckle at the info and seeing Lapis struggle a little to get up into the passenger seat. I look back at him and smile. "Thanks man I… I appreciate it." Wiping my eyes, I look back to the gems and I give Steven a determined look. "I promise you, I will return. But for now, I think we both need some clarity. Find out what you can here, and I'll find out what I can 'here.'" I gesture to Lapis subtly so she doesn't catch on. "Deal?"

"Deal." He agrees with a head nod.

"Nice." I say with a smile and extend my left fist to him. "Gimme' one for the road."

With a grin, he fists bump me hard.

I playfully feign getting hurt. "Ow. Man you're getting stronger." I say while shaking my hand. We have a small laugh about it. "Take care."

"You too." He says and runs back to the gems.

"Buckle up." I say to Lapis. She looks confused for a second but when I click on my seatbelt, she gets it.

"Marcus!" I hear Garnet call out to me.

"Where are you going?!" Pearl asks me loudly.

"Answers guys!" I reply and shift gears. "Clear us a path?" I ask her with a hand wave to the front of us. She nods and with a simple hand wave, the ocean parts again. With a smile, I look back to the others. "I'm getting answers" I simply say and hit the gas.

"Marcus!" I hear all but Lapis and Steven call out to me as my tires peel out in the sand for a bit. They finally gain traction and we rocket into the sea bed.

"Eep!" Lapis yelps at the sudden force of my vehicle moving and I can't help but chuckle at her he fearful gripping of the door and chair she's on. I feel the vertigo of going downhill at high speeds and smile at the feeling. The terrain flattens out for a small bit but climbs up again to a flat rock that looks like a ramp.

"Hang on." I warn her. She quickly looks to me before gripping tighter on the things around her. The ramps comes up and to her surprise and my excitement, we launch into the air.

I don't let out a 'whoop.' I don't yell, unlike Lapis. I just let the feeling take me, the weightless feeling through the air and it is awesome.

My truck lands roughly on the ground, bouncing a little on its shocks before straightening out along the now flat land. I release my left hand on the wheel and simply set the cruise control. Looking over to Lapis, she's still clutching her seat. "Relax. No more jumps or spontaneous stunts." I reassure her.

"You sure?" She questions me.

"Positive."

"O-okay." She says and relaxes a bit. To my amazement, Lapis was able to keep the ocean path clear for us despite her earlier fears. She's still a little tense at being in my truck, considering this probably has been her first time out in years.

' _Years? God damn what did the Crystal Gems do?'_ I glance at Lapis. _'What kind of demons do they have to imprison a girl like you Lapis? Maybe you can give me some answers. Maybe the gems can give Steven some answers. They trust him far more than me.'_ I let out a sigh and run my left hand along my face, a little frustrated at the whole situation and the lack of info I have but hopefully I can get some soon. _'What a right mess I got myself in. Who knows how dangerous it'll be allying myself with her.'_ I think and slightly look to Lapis who leans out the window to see the ground pass beneath us. Smirking, I shift gears and my truck lurches forward with increased speed.

' _Then again, since when did I live a 'safe' life?'_

 **What's this? Some conflict on the home-front? I amaze myself. But seriously folks, Marcus was originally supposed to stay with the gems but then I thought 'Hmmmm, that could be interesting.' I was debating on it but it's not just me that's affected by this. Tell me what you guys think?**

 **Is this the potential for something else big to happen? Who knows, even I don't.**

 **Anyway, felt just as excited to make this chapter and I can't wait to get started on the next chapter and I'm sure you guys can't wait either.**

 **Also, if you want an idea at how Marcus looks when he does that fast movement speed ability, think of Wesker from Resident Evil. Most prominently from Resident Evil 5.**

 **Some of you mentioned before that while the potential for Marcus to fall in love with Pearl is there, there is also the prospect that Pearl is kind of considered a lesbian at this point in the series and that means she may not reciprocate those feelings for him. Whether they fall in love or not is still for me to decide. That's not to say I won't outright deny her apparent sexuality. Maybe I can come up with a valid reason for her being in love with Rose or not. The future is still slightly blank to me you know. Maybe he can fall in love with someone else. There are still other players in the field, remember that. I do hope in the future that 'if' I choose someone, I make the transition to it fair and somewhat sensible that no flames are thrown at me.**

 **In any case, with that done, see you later and have fun reading.**


	17. 16 A Past Revealed

**You know what, screw it. I was told by another author that the whole review not showing up thing has happened before and should be fixed soon enough. With that, I've decided to forget my own paranoia and just give you guys this. Review it or not that's your guys decision and I won't stop you. For now, enjoy the read.**

Hours. It's been hours since Lapis and I left Beach City and we've traveled in relative silence. Night has already descended and the only sound we hear is the waves crashing against the water barrier she erected and the grinding of my tires on the ocean floor. There hasn't been anything to talk about really and since we don't have to worry about fighting. Mostly I've been thinking about Steven calling me family.

' _Family… Thank you Steven.'_ I smile at the thought. It's been awhile since I've considered people family and the idea of some reciprocating that is nice. It's pretty evident at this point that my actual blood family is non-existent. In the time I've been alive, blood means nothing to me. Your actions mean everything to me. The gems have been good to me, don't get me wrong, but things are still pretty complicated at this point. _'I hope things get resolved soon enough.'_ Besides my apparent betrayal to the Crystal Gems, things have been quiet for Lapis and I. Just a silent drive across the sea bed for us heading to who knows were.

"You don't look like a gem."

At least it was silent.

"Hm?" I look at her.

"You and Steven… you said you're Crystal Gems but you don't look like gems. I haven't even seen either of your gems." She tells me.

Looking back to front, I reach to my sleeve and slide it up, revealing my gem on my right shoulder.

"You're a Jade?" She questions.

"Not… entirely." I try to say. "I have a human father but a gem mother. She sacrificed herself to give me life and I inherited her gems. This is only half. I have two gems. The other is on my opposite shoulder." I inform her.

"Two? You're a fusion?" She takes a second to look me over, "You don't look like one, although it does explain your strength when you fought that Crystal Gem." She slightly spats out 'Crystal Gem.'

"No. I'm not a fusion." I casually answer her.

"Then what aare-"

"I'm actually the son of a powerful gem. An… experimental gem of sorts. She was supposed to be this new soldier breed or something like that but-"

"You're her?!" She almost screams at me, making me flinch.

"What?!" I ask in surprise as I look at her.

"I-I-I heard about her but I didn't- Look out!" She begins to say but immediately points forward. Looking to the front, I see us coming up fast on a giant coral reef.

"Shit!" I curse loudly and twist the wheel to the side. My trucks momentum was too much and I collide with the back half of my truck against the coral, a loud scratching noise emanating from the hit and shaking the entire vehicle. Unfortunately, the cruise control is still on and we continue driving towards more hard coral. I begin twisting the wheel left and right to avoid the many pieces of coral and avoid catastrophic damage.

*Bang*

Unfortunately, just as we make it out of plain of sharp coral, tiny pieces on the ground manage to pierce one of my tires. Quickly I turn off the cruise control and hit the brakes hard, twisting my vehicle to the right to add to the stopping power. My truck skids along the sand before coming to a jostling stop.

We stay still for a tense dozen seconds, both of us gripping our respective pieces tightly.

"You alright?" I ask my passenger.

"Ye-Yes." She manages to say.

"Phew!... Good." I sigh in relief and finally let go of the steering wheel, little impressions lining the part where I was holding on. Taking a deep breath, I unhook y seatbelt and get out.

"Where are you going?!" I hear Lapis ask me but I'm worried at this point about my ride. I look to where the coral brushed against my truck and it is not a pretty sight. I crouch down next to it and see the frame where the back left half of my truck is is shredded badly with deep grooves of the metal being pierced through and torn along. Scratches adorn it as well and there is a massive gash torn straight through the side of the tire.

"Okay, the frame can be replaced or possibly repaired. Gonna take a lot of welding and buffing to fix it though. Good thing I have a-"

"Uhhh, Marcus? Is this right?" I hear Lapis call out. Getting up, I walk around my truck and see her standing next to my front right tire. To add to my depression, the tire is completely flat. Wondering what happened to it, I crouch next to the tire and examine it to see what the damage is. To piss me off even more, I find a large sharp piece of hard coral lodged in my tire. Gripping it tightly, I wedge the offending piece out and examine it a little before tossing it away.

"So much for my spare." I sadly say and sit down against my truck.

"What's wrong?" I look up as Lapis asks me the question.

"Shhhhh, my tires are popped. We can't move anywhere. Not on that terrain." I say while pointing to the sand around us. Thankfully my truck stopped on a large flat slab of stone but I'm still not going anywhere.

"Can't you fix them?"

I shake my head, "No. I don't have the necessary tools. I do have a spare tire but I have two popped tires. Even if I change one, I'm still not moving." I tell her. I lean back and let my head lay against my truck.

"Oh." She says sadly. There is a moment of silence for us because of the weight of the situation. She then sits down next to me and curls her legs against her chest.

We just sit there in silence for less than a minute, not sure what to say next.

"Hey." I get her attention.

"Yes?"

"Was there a specific destination you wanted to go to or did you just want to get away from the Crystal Gems?" I ask her. I know she wanted to get as far away from the others as she can but besides that I wasn't sure the destination she wanted to go to.

"Nowhere specific. I just wanted to get away from them mostly." She answers.

"Hm," I think for a bit and look around for a second at our surroundings. "Is this good?"

She looks at me for a second before looking at her surroundings as well. "Yeah… yeah this is good." She accepts our predicament. I nod and stand up, offering a hand to help her stand up as well.

"Good. Can you close off the path we took? I don't want anyone following us or the coast guard investigating." I ask of her. She waves her hand to the path and lets the water fall back to where it once was, except this time she keeps a large circle of the ocean free for us to be in. "Can you encase us in a dome sphere with a small hole in the top?" I ask her again. Without a word, she lets the water flow over us with only a small hole at the top the size of a manhole being the only thing spottable from the outside. She clenches her fists and the dome around us begins to harden up and turn to ice. "Nice job Lapis."

"Th… thanks." I turn to her weak voice to see her starting to sway.

"Lapis?" She begins to topple forward. "Lapis!" I shout and slide to her to catch her before he hits the ground. She falls limply into my arms. "Lapis! Lapis! Are you alright?!" I try to ask her but she remains unresponsive. Gently, I lay her down on a clean flat piece of the ground, mindful of her gem and see how she is. Nothing speaks out loud about her being injured but from what I can tell, she just seems to be unconscious. _'Probably from over extending her powers. She did part the ocean for us for hours in a row and I can't imagine the carefulness she had to exhibit in making this dome shape around us. Not to mention hardening it.'_ I deduce in my mind and sit back. Letting out a low breath of air, I look around for anything for me to use in my situation. "Let's see…"

* * *

"There." I voice my success. After Lapis fell unconscious, I decided to try and make a camp of sorts with what I have around me. When she pushed the water out from all around us, she pushed nearly all of it out; meaning that a few pieces of driftwood were left bone dry for me to make a fire with. I decided to make the fire not right next to Lapis for fear of drying her up since her affiliation is using hydrokinesis. Once the fire was made, I went around and gathered a couple pieces of fish that were left here as well. They weren't completely dried up but they were definitely passed on. It was simple enough to prepare them with my katana's to being cooked and now they lay suspended over the fire. "Now that that's done, what now?" I ask out loud. My only other form conversation with is Lapis and she's still unconscious after half-an-hour. With a dejected sigh, I stab my swords into the ground and sit down next to the fire between it and Lapis to warm myself up. I stare into the fire in captivated silence, watching as the flames lick at the wood and the air around it to keep itself alive and growing.

A minute passes and my eyes begin to burn from constantly watching the flames. I shake my head and rub eyes before sighing. Carefully, I pull out my revolver and examine the weapon. The hammer is still cocked to my surprise. I stare at the weapon for a few seconds before I set the hammer to its resting place before I open the cylinder and let the rounds fall from it.

*Cling*Cling*Cling*Cling*Cling*

In the quietness of our little hovel, five shells falling onto the rock are very evident around us and almost echoing. I leave one round in the cylinder and close it. Slowly, I bring my left hand up and slide it along the cylinder, making it cycle all around a few times before coming to a stop. Slowly, I pull the hammer back and lift the gun to the side of my head.

I keep it placed there for a few seconds before taking a deep breath.

' _1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 8… 9… 10.'_

*Click*

Letting out the breath I was holding, I carefully take the gun away from my head and sigh. "Hm." I place the weapon next to me on my right. I take off the AK from my back and place it on the ground to my left. I stare into the fire some more, taking in the silence.

I grab my revolver again and look at it again before opening up the cylinder to see just how close I was.

"What's that?" I look behind me to see Lapis staring at me but still lying down. Closing the cylinder without seeing where the round is, I scoop the other rounds up and pat the spot next to me. She slowly gets up and proceeds to sit down next to me.

"This… is a weapon. A powerful weapon used by the human race." I rotate the cylinder before opening it up and taking the round out. "It fires these things called bullets. Very small rounds but when used in tandem with special powders and chemical compositions, turns this small almost harmless object into one of the deadliest fastest moving projectile you have ever seen." I explain. I hold the round out so she cups her hands to catch it. I simply drop the round into her hand and let her look at it.

"It doesn't look like much." She informs me.

I smirk at her deduction, "That's the idea. First glance it doesn't look like much but when combined with something like this," I grab my revolver and hold it up, "It can be a very dangerous weapon for anyone on the end of this." I point to the end of the barrel. I hold the handle out for her to take it. "Here."

"A-are you sure?" she asks me.

"Yeah, its fine. It's not loaded so you won't be accidentally shooting me or yourself." I tell her. She looks hesitantly at first at the offered weapon but slowly takes the handle in hand. The second I let go of the barrel, she feels the full force of its weight.

"Oh!" She almost drops it as her hand goes to the ground but she rights herself before it actually impacts it. She bounces the weapon a few times in her hands to truly gauge the weight of the weapon. "It's… heavier than I expected."

"Usually is." I simply say and return to staring at the fire. I hear her gently place my gun down on the ground between us.

"What about that one?" her finger accompanies her words in my vision as she points to the other side of me. Looking, I see she meant my AK. Releasing a heavy sigh, I pull the gun onto my lap.

"This… one… is a special gun. This is the AK and there are thousands like it and it's renowned for its reliability, power and accuracy." I inform her with a slight smile. I pause in my explanation as I spot the slit hole in the side of the receiver. "But this one's useless. Gone. No longer operable. I can strip out the parts and use them elsewhere but the heart of the weapon, the receiver, I can't use it anymore." I say depressingly with my head low.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." She apologizes to me.

"It's fine. Not your fault." I tell her it's alright. Silence reigns its head around again as I continue to look over the weapon, trying to come up with some way to hopefully repair it.

"What's special about it?"

"I'm sorry?" I look at her.

"You say there are thousands like it, what makes this one special?" She asks me curiously. For several quiet seconds, I continue to stare at her, making her cringe and shrink a little at my never changing face before I look at the fire.

"This belonged to a friend of mine." I tell her. She goes to say something, "He's dead now." I interrupt her. _'Can't believe I'm going to tell her… but I don't care anymore.'_ "I'm 18 years old. 3 years ago, when I was 15, I knew a guy for awhile. I was alone and scared, didn't trust anyone." Then this guy found me.

* * *

 _I'm alone. I have bruises all over my body and a big guy standing over me with pipe in hand._

" _I told you just to give up your money man. Just had to go and make it painful for yourself." The man says in a deep voice. By this point, I didn't care whether I lived or die. I had left my home away from my father and I just walked and walked to god knows where. Eventually, I was cornered and my assailant tried to mug me but he took my silence as defiance and beat me. I remember he got ready to bash my skull in._

" _Get away from him!" I didn't bother to look up as I heard the sounds of struggles and clanging metal for half a minute._

" _Get out of here!"_

" _You're gonna pay for that you little bitch! I swear it!" Retreating footsteps and deep breathing are the only other things I hear after the scuffle._

" _You alright?" I slowly look up and see another person standing over me, smaller and sporting a few bruises with his hand extended to me. Slowly but carefully, I reach out with my right hand… and he grabbed it._

* * *

"From then on, we became the best of friends for months. His name was jack and I never told him I was alone so for a few months we mostly hung out at his place. I lied about my age so it would make sense I lived on my own but in reality, he was a year older than me. His parents were incredibly nice and offered to make me food to eat whenever I would come over. He was a gun nut and wanted to buy all sorts of firearms for his collection. From old to new, if it was effective and awesome, he wanted it." I hold up the AK in my hand and smile. "This… was his first and most prized purchase. He took me to a secluded place where we would practice shooting. He taught me how to shoot, clean, and fix these weapons like it was nothing. We had each other's back and had a lot of fun." My smile turns to a frown. Tears begin to well up in the sides of my eyes. "For a few months at least."

"What happened?" Lapis asks me, leaning in a bit more, clearly wondering what happened.

I stare into the fire, seeing the whole thing play before me in the depts of the flames.

* * *

 _One night, I was heading to his house just to see if he wanted to hang out. I was walking down the road to his place when I noticed a truck parked in front of his place. Before I could question the whole thing, I saw four guys run out his front door frantically, a couple of them griping parts of their body in pain. The guys jumped in the passenger seats of the truck and the back of it before the drive peeled out. One of the guys in the back looked and for a second, our eyes met and I froze as I recognized it as the man who beat me and Jack saved me from. He gave me a sadistic smile while their vehicle drove away. Shaking myself from seeing the man, my heart started to beat faster and faster as I stared at the open door to his house. I bolted to the door and threw it open to see a gruesome sight. I covered my mouth to keep myself from screaming as I saw the dead corpses of my best friend's mother, father and sister in the living area._

 _The mother and daughter were shot dead clutching each other. The father was riddled with bullets and was next to another body with a broken champagne glass stem stuck through the assailant's neck. I almost threw up right then and there but I looked around to find my friends body when it wasn't. I got out of there and looked to his room to see another guy dead with bullet holes adorning both the door and the attacker. Stepping over the body, I carefully push open his door._

" _Hey Marcus."_

" _Jack!" I yell out and crouch next to my friend. His chest has a round in it and his stomach has a few as well. In his right hand is his AK with half the magazine spent. "Oh my god! Jack! Jack, please stay with me! I'll call help and-" He grabs my hand._

" _We… we both know I'm not going to make it." He weakly says. I tried to deny it but I knew he wasn't going to make it. I didn't know the extent to where he got it or what punctured what but I knew it._

" _I-I-I… I'm sorry. It was him. The guy you saved me from." I try to tell him through tears and a choked voice. "It was him. He did this."_

" _Hehe, I should have known. Guess he… Ngh…. Lived up to what he said." He groans out._

" _I'm sorry, Jack. If you had never… If you hadn't… Then he wouldn't have…" I try to say but my voice keeps breaking._

" _Sh. It's fine man. I don't regret it… I got a great friend…" I smiled at his compliment, "And… I get to be with my family." He says through tears. I squeeze his hand harder as I remember his family._

" _Jack…" I cry out._

" _Hey… Take care man." He says with a smile. I nod._

 _*Thud*_

 _His hand falls limply from mine and impacts the floor._

 _I don't scream. I don't yell. I just… cry. I cry for the loss of a great life and others as well. Tears fall like rivers down my face and hit his limp hand. For a few minutes I stay like that, weeping until my eyes run dry. Slowly, I reach to my friends face and close his eyes. I reach down and grab his AK. Going to his closet, I grab the extra magazines he has and make my way to the back door as the police arrive. As I walk down the alleyway, my movements are slow._

 _The killers face flashes before me._

 _I turn into a jog._

 _The license plate flashes before me._

 _I run._

 _My friends body._

 _I start sprinting with my objective in mind._

* * *

"After that night, I spent the next several days searching high and low for him that bastard. I kept to the shadows, rooftops and non-public areas so I could search for him. A few days after, I snuck into a police station and hacked into one of their computers, accessing their criminal database and facial recognition software to find mention of the guy I saw. He had a record and others he hung out with. Using that and the license plate, I found the one area where all that was most frequently spotted in."

* * *

 _I walk up to the door of the abandoned warehouse and listen for the voices. I hear them laughing and having a good time inside. Talking about miscellaneous things but when I heard the guy speak, I acted._

 _Racking the bolt carrier back, I kick open the door._

" _What the-?!" One of them didn't have time to do anything before I opened fire. I kept the assault rifle level along my side with my face keeping its impassive look as I took one life after another. When I exhausted the ammo in the magazine, I switched it out and looked at the five corpses. I recognized the guys from the house as well as some of the injuries they sustained thanks to my friend._

" _Ng." I hear a grunt and look to see one of them crawling towards a gun._

 _*Bang*_

" _Argh!" The man groans out as I shoot the hand that was outstretched to grab the M1911. I kick him in the stomach, making him choke and curl up before he looks up to see my face. "You?! You son of a-"_

 _*Chi-chick*_

 _I pull the bolt back, loading the round in and aim at his face with one hand. The guy that survived is my assailant._

 _My friends killer._

" _You can't do it. Not when I'm down like this. You don't have the guts to-"_

 _*BANG!*_

* * *

"From that point on, I didn't want to die anymore. I didn't want to just give up and lie down like that. From that point, I became a vigilante. I traveled a lot, went to different cities and did what I could to help. Save people from being mugged, killed rapists and murders, provided info to the police anonymously on criminal activities, anything I could do to help innocent people. It wasn't a pretty life but… one I was willing to partake in. There are… still moments where I… see faces but… I still test myself to see if I'm still able to live." I finish my story. For the few years I've been alone, this was the biggest I was holding in for so long. Now that its out…

I put the weapon down and immediately embrace Lapis in a hug, much to her surprise. She hesitates for a second before holding me back.

"He didn't deserve to die! His family didn't deserve to die!" I almost yell out.

"I-I-I know Marcus."

"They didn't… they didn't…"

I break down.

Any emotional barriers I could have possible had come crumbling down as I bawl into Lapis's shoulder. You may think that while we've only known each other for barely a day, I feel like there is something about her that I can trust with this. Maybe it's because she's alone and she can't tell anyone else. Maybe it's because she was trapped. Maybe it's because of the secrets that the gems have kept that have me indifferent about them.

I don't know. All I know it is that I spent the next hour crying to Lapis.

* * *

The time passes and I gently release her with my eyes red from the crying.

"Thank you." I thank her with my voice a little hoarse.

"You're welcome." She replies.

My eyes fall back to the fire. It's starting to go low and the fish have already burned off. I'm not too beat up over it so I simply grab the sticks and toss them away.

"I came to this planet thousands of years ago." I look at Lapis as she begins to talk while staring into the fires with her legs curled against her. "The rebellion had already started and I was only meant to visit for a short time but… I got caught in the middle of the war. It was awful! So much fighting and destruction… I tried to run but…" She pauses and looks like she's having a little trouble.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." I grasp her shoulder.

"No. No, I want to just...*Sigh*… I was destroyed by a Homeworld soldier and forced to retreat into my gem. I was later picked up by another Homeworld soldier and confused for a Crystal Gem and used as a tool. They placed me inside that… damn mirror and wanted me to talk. They'd asked me, "Show us your base!", "Where is your leader?" I didn't know anything. I couldn't say I'm not one of them. After awhile, the war escalated and it became clear that there was no hope in stopping the rebellion. All of the Homeworld Gems fled, retreating home and in all the panic of escaping Earth, I was left behind." Even though her eyes stay the same glassy look, I can tell she's probably reminiscing about the whole thing. "And there I stayed. Laying there. Freedom in my sight, but out of reach for years."

' _Oh god. I can't imagine that amount of torture. Stuck in a prison for thousands of years with someone else controlling your eyes._ '

"It seemed hopeless for so long, just watching the vastness of space pass for years until I was found by that… Pearl." She groans out Pearls name.

"Really?" I ask.

"Really." She confirms.

"Hm, sounds like to me that it's Homeworld you should have a beef with. Not the Crystal Gems." I inform her. If it's the Homeworld soldiers that hurt and captured her, maybe she needs to be mad at them.

"Maybe… but if it wasn't for the Crystal Gems and their Rebellion, I wouldn't have been imprisoned for thousands of years." She tells me bitterly. I don't expect her to suddenly start loving the Crystal Gems but I don't want her to be openly hostile against them either.

The fire finally dies out. Standing up, I kick the sand over the fire and stomp on it to ensure it stays out. Once its dead, I stand there for a few seconds before I pick up my stuff and head to my truck. "I'm going to get some sleep."

"You sleep?" she asks me. I open the door and place my AK on the passenger seat and my revolver and its speedloaders in the glove compartment.

"Yeah, yeah I do. I may be a gem but I'm also human. I still need to rest and eat." I close the passenger door and open back door. "I'll see you in the morning Lapis. From then, we'll work out a plan to get you home." I inform her.

"Okay. Goodnight." She wishes me goodnight.

"Night." I climb into the back seat to lay on it but I stop just from closing the door. I lean out, "Hey Lapis?" She turns back to me, "The Crystal Gems aren't all bad. I know they were indifferent and ignorant of your imprisonment and I don't blame you for your anger. I'm not asking you to instantly like them, but… I hope eventually… you can at least tolerate their presence so you don't attack them on sight." I tell her. True the gems didn't exactly help but they are still good people from what I can tell and I hope Lapis is the only skeleton in their closet, so to speak, I found.

Without another word, I move back in and slam the door shut. Finding myself as comfortable as I can get, I prepare to go to sleep but my mind leaves me with one final thought.

' _Whelp, let's see what tomorrow brings.'_ My body settles in and I drift to sleep.

Needless to say, tomorrow get's very interesting.

 **This chapter was originally planned to be a part of the next chapter but I decided to go ahead and split it. I felt like it would have been pretty cool to have a chapter dedicated to the two alone. While I felt comfortable with Marcus's past to write, I felt a little miffed at the lack of Lapis's past like before she came to Earth. I did what I could to stretch it out at least but it still kinda sucks.**

 **Anyhow, it seems the two have bonded and you guys got a nice chunk of Marcus's past for you all to pick at. To be honest, the past was also an on the spot write as well. It's a little annoying to suddenly come up with new things that seem like they are a good thing to put in. So far I've done a few of those on the spot put ins and I was hoping if you guys could tell me if they are good or not because I know of other writers who spend weeks, months and possibly years developing stories to write. I've had this idea for quite awhile but its only when I actually start writing that these new ideas start to pop up. I hope their alright for you guys what with Marcus leaving with Lapis and this part of his past coming up.**

 **In any case, see you later and have fun reading.**


	18. 17 Ocean Gem

**(Make sure you read the last chapter. I'm not sure if a notification email went out signaling the last chapters upload)**

Sleep isn't an issue with me. Despite my past, it's just that, the past. While some people have trouble forgetting it, right now I have more pressing matters to deal with and others to help and depend on. Sometimes I do think about the past but its not like I lose sleep for what I've done. I've done both good and bad things in my life but I can hopefully say I did more good.

Right now though, first and foremost, its night.

"The hell? I was pretty wiped when I went to sleep. And it was pretty late." I mutter to myself as I continue to lie down. Pulling out my phone, I see the time is much earlier than when I fell asleep and it's definitely the next day. "Damn. Sleep longer than I thought." I put my phone away and grab the head rest of the front seat. "Alright, guess I better get planning… to…" As I go up, I don't see the dome over my ride. I don't even see any water around me. "The fuck?" I question and shuffle out of my ride. As I slam the door closed, I stare into the vast expanse we traveled from to see the whole area completely dry. Almost like a desert. "What the hell happened?" I question out loud. My thoughts start to point to my hydrokinesis powered friend but even she wouldn't take away the entire Atlantic Ocean would she?

Some worbling noises behind me cause to turn around and look up

And up… and up… and up.

"Oh god. Lapis, what did you do?" I mutter and jog to the giant water-based space elevator she made. As I get closer to the giant spire, I notice that when Lapis pulled in the ocean, she pulled in everything that was also living in it from small fishes to sharks and octopuses. "Lapis!" I yell out her name to the top of the spire.

For a moment, I'm met with only the sloshing water of the spire but I'm starting to see ripples on the surface on it. Soon her face appears in the water in front of me. "Yes… Marcus?"

"Lapis, what are you doing?" I ask her sternly.

"I'm going home Marcus. I plan to stretch the earth's ocean far enough for me to make it back to Homeworld. Don't try to stop me." She says the last part as her face disappears into the water.

"What?!" I ask in disbelief. _'Even with the entire earth's water supply, she still wouldn't have enough water to make it all the way to Homeworld! I don't know the distance but I sure as hell know it's nowhere close by or probably not even in our own solar system.'_ I walk around as I begin to think about the consequences of Lapis's suicidal plan. _'The worlds fucked up enough as it is. If she drains the places of the world that desperately need water, water starved villages, fire ridden forests, city's and towns would be almost defenseless. Not to mention the sheer imbalance of the ecosystem should she continue with it…'_ "Oh my god." I moan out as I pace back and forth. "What- what is she- she can't-" I start to sputter erratically at the damage she could cause.

A rumbling noise shakes me from my ramblings. Look towards where we came from yesterday. I see either a bad or good sight, Steven and Connie on Lion's back, and the Crystal Gems in Greg's van. "Great. I knew this was going to be bad." I mutter as they all begin to disembark. I turn back to the spire and slam my fist into the water. "Lapis! You have to give back the water!" I command her.

"Please Marcus! I have to do this!" I hear her voice boom back to me.

"I know you have to go home! But not like this! If you do it this way, you'll kill countless lives, destroy cities, and irreparably damage the earth!" I yell to her, hoping to try and convince her to stop. "And you know I can't stand-by and let you do this." I finish up with a firm say of my position on the matter.

She stays silent through my rant and a little bit after.

The water forms her face again, smaller this time and on level with my head. "You won't help me?" She asks me sadly. I give her a sympathetic look.

"I do want to help you Lapis. I do… but not at the cost of others." I tell her. "Please stop. We can find another way." I plead to her.

Her face takes a sad look before it starts to recede into the water. "So be it." She says as she completely disappears into the water.

I smile, _'Good. Hopefully I was able to get through to-'_

My thoughts are interrupted as I am sent flying.

* * *

Everyone watches in both surprise and horror as Marcus is sent flying away from the water spire. The Crystal gem team all are forced to duck as the gem is hybrid is sent flying over them where he impacts the side of Greg's van, causing him to flip over the vehicle as well as tip over the vehicle itself.

"Marcus!"

"My van!"

The others give Greg and irritated look at his concern for his van over their friend. He looks nervously at them, "Uhhh, uhh, I mean uhh, Marcus." He laughs nervously.

"Please Lapis!" Everyone redirects their attention to Steven as he begins walking to the spire of water. "Don't do this! We're all Gems, right? Just let us help you." He pleads to the water-controlling gem at the top of the spire.

"You don't understand. Just leave me alone..." She replies to Steven, still not budging on the issue.

"We're not leaving, Lapis." He says and beats his palm's against the waters surface. "Not until you give us back our ocean- Aah!" Steven yelps as a hand grabs the front of his shirt

"I said..." Lapis's voice can be heard as a form begins to push its way out of the water. Once it's fully out, the water form is actually a water clone of Marcus. "Leave me alone!" Lapis yells and stretches the water out of the water clones arms and sends Steven flying back to the others.

"Ah!" He yells as he flys and hit the ground.

Three more water clones of Marcus appear and stand firm in a line.

"Greg, kids, you stay behind us. We'll handle this." Pearl gestures for them to stay back.

"Sounds good to me!" Greg immediately complies and proceeds to hide behind a rock followed by the kids.

The Crystal Gems all summon their respective weapons but the water clones summon the gems weapons as well, with one clone pulling out two of Amethyst's whips but shorter, another pulling out an even longer version of Pearl's spear, the third one knocking its knuckles together to form gauntlets like Garnet's but these adorned with blunt spikes on the end of them and not as bulky and the original one that grabbed Steven pulling out Marcus's dual Katana's.

"Ruh-oh." Amethyst cries out at the ferocity of their opposition.

"Stand together. Don't let them-"

*Fwomp*

Before Garnet can finish her statement, the gauntlet wearing clone rushes her, prepared to separate her from the rest of her team.

*Clang*

Everyone stares at the body standing between Garnet and the clone. "Rah!" He yells and pushes the clone off him.

Marcus stands tall in front of his friends with his Colt Anaconda in his right hand and a massive shield on his left arm.

However not just any shield. The shield Marcus has strapped to his arm is a massive rectangular shaped ballistic shield used by SWAT. Unlike the clear thin ones used by riot police, the ballistic shield has only a horizontal bulletproof glass slit for the wearer to see through it but it is also designed to take more than just bullet as it is able to take massive amounts of abuse and even most close proximity explosives. "Stay out of this." He says behind him before he walks forward. With a suitable distance between the two, he points his revolver at the lead clone.

* * *

"Lapis… don't make me." I plead to her one last time. I don't want to fight my friends full on… but I will given no choice.

She gives me no choice as all the clones of me tense up.

"So be it." I mimic her words and cock the hammer back.

They charge.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*Bang*

I fire four rounds into each of them but the only thing it does is just slightly slow them down. _'Hard way then, eh? Bring it.'_ I holster my revolver and bring my shield up just as the spear and gauntlets impact it. I bring my katana up to deflect the swords away from me but as I do, the whips wrap around my arm and pull me hard, making me crash against the clones attacking the shield and sending me flying to the whip wielder. Smiling, I twist myself in the air and bring one of my legs out to kick it in the face. It sidesteps to avoid my attack but I use my other leg to connect. The water easily passes against my leg and disrupts the form for a bit. I roll on the ground a few times before sliding to a crouch and immediately getting to my feet just as the gauntlets, spear and sword wielders attack me. I meet the punches head on with my shield and deflect the sword away with mine before leaning back just as the spear goes to stab me. Pushing off the gauntlet wearer, I slam my shield against the swordsman, sending him flying back as I go one on one with the spearman.

He tries to slice at me but I deflect the attacks with my shield and try to attack with my sword but the spearman has reach while I have flexibility. I dodge all its stabs and put my shield up to take the slices but I can't get close to properly attack. Leaning back from a spear strike, I bring my shield up behind me to block a sword strike. Without missing a beat, I duck low to the ground and allow the spearman and swordsman to connect attacks with each other before I do a complete 360 and sweep their legs out from under them. They are momentarily in the air and I slice the spearman in half before bringing my shield down and crushing the swords man.

Taking a moment to catch my breath, I dodge backwards as the gauntlet tries to crush me from above. He immediately dashes forward towards me so I block his attack with my shield. He doesn't let up with his punches however and sends a flurry of punches to me similar to Garnets last I fought her, causing me to slide back from the blows. As my feet continue to slide back, they stop when I'm met with rocks and I take the opportunity to retaliate. When both of its fists are on my shield, I push back hard. I send his fists into the air with my shield push back and respond with a Spartan kick to his chest, making him go flying and rolling back on the ground. I quickly look over the scene to see both the spearman and swordsman start to piece themselves back together as the gauntlet wearer stops rolling.

"Great. This should be interesting." I comment and ready myself again.

I quickly duck down as a rock goes soaring over my head. Looking to the left, I see whips flinging two rocks at me. With a quick slice, I cut the first rock down the middle using my sword before brining my body around and destroying the second with a shield bash. The whips begin flying towards me from left and right, impacting the shield with sheer ferocity that would make me cringe if I wasn't pushing back. I use my ballistic shield to take most of the attacks but I use my sword to deflect other attacks off me too. Soon its whips become too long to properly attack me so I take the chance and rush my with a shield bash. I use the majority of my weight on the bash and send him flying back but before he can go far, I twirl around and send a roundhouse kick to his side, sending my flipping back and forth towards the rest of its compatriots.

I stand there breathing for a few seconds as I stare at the state my enemies are in. They all stand back up and look none the worse for wear. _'Shit. This isn't working. I need a new strategy before-'_ My planning is interrupted as I count three instead of four. _'Wait, where's the fourth o-'_

A crack of sand behind me makes me turn around and bring my shield up. Unfortunately I wasn't ready to put my shield up in time and I'm sent flying back by the force of the gauntlet wielders attack.

"Grah!" I yell in pain as the spearman smacks me hard in my unprotected side using the blunt end of his spear, making my flying turn to a complete 90 degree angle. Before I can reorient myself, the swordsman presses the attack and crosses its sword on my shield before slicing them forward, sending my speed twice as fast. "Cah!" Right into a boulder. My body goes rigid from the shock of hitting full force against the rock. I fall to my knees as I struggle to regain myself. "Ahhhh!" I yelp as something hits my right hand, forcing me to release my sword. Looking up, I see it was a whip. Looking next to him, I bring my shield up just as the gauntlet wearer launches its barrage of attacks again on me. Unfortunately this time, I don't have an angle to push back as my entire body pressed against the rock.

*Crack*

My body tenses up as I watch a large crack go up the glass on my shield. Looking through the glass, I watch as he winds his left fist back for a more powerful punch.

My body's too stunned to move. I close my eyes as he punches.

*Boom*

With nowhere else to go, the force of the punch does three things: 1, It completely transfers all energy through me and shatters the rock behind me. 2, it sends me flying through the air before I roll violently along the ground. 3, as I come to a stop, I look through pain filled eyes as my shield slides along to me… in two pieces. The entire thing was broken in two horizontally, effectively making it useless.

"Damnit." I grunt as I grip my sword that slid along with me.

"You can't win Marcus." I look up as the four clones advance on me, each one speaking in unison with Lapis's voice. "Give up now and go home." She asks.

I stare at the clones of me for a little bit before I start chuckling. "Ha ha ha ha hahaaa. Oh Lapis. I'm not giving up." I grip my sword harder and use it to push myself off the ground. "Not when I still breathe… I'm not stopping." I fully stand and spit it out a few bits of blood. "Not you… not the gems… not homeworld… not earth. Until… my life… is extinguished… I 'will' not stop helping my friends." I grip my sword in both hands and widen my stance. "Even if it means knocking some sense into them."

"Then you leave me no choice." She says and all the clones ready themselves.

I grip the handle harder and dig my feet into the sand.

*Crunch*Crunch*

The crunch of the sand next to me makes me tense up but I relax to see its Pearl and Amethyst, ready to fight. Pearl turns her head to me, looks me in the eye and gives me a confident smile and a nod before turning back to the clones with a ready look. I can't help but smile at them.

*Crunch*Crunch*Crunch*

More sand movement to the other side of me makes me look, now seeing Garnet, Steven, Connie and Lion ready as well.

"We're sorry Marcus." Garnet says without looking at me. "We should have told you what we knew."

"And we're sorry we broke your AK." Amethyst says as she tightens her grip on her whip. "We didn't know it was so important to you."

"We're sorry, Marcus." Pearl apologizes as well. With a flourish, she holds her spear elegantly. "But we have you now."

"Guys…"I say in disbelief. They were a bit ignorant of my weapons value to me. I can forgive this once. I nod at their support and turn my attention back to our opponents to see the clones take on the appearances of the gems as well as getting exact replicas of their weapons. Another clone slithers its way forward before morphing into a clone of Steven. Now, there is a water clone of Steven, Garnet, Me, Pearl and Amethyst. After examining our enemies, I turn back and pull out my keys. "Hey Greg!" The man pops his head out from behind a rock. I easily toss him the keys to my truck, which he manages to catch with both hands. "Get in my truck! You'll be safer there." I order him to. He looks at my keys for a second before looking to where my vehicle is parked. Seeing it, he nods a couple times before jogging over to it and getting into the driver seat. With him out of the way and safe, I slowly walk forward a few steps and extend my right arm with my sword out. I turn back to my team and smirk, "Let's go."

Quick as lightning, I shadow step forward and appear in front of the clones, where I let out a war cry and bring in an overhead kinetic strike with my fist directly into the ground in front of them, causing a small shockwave and sending each one flying away from each other. Everyone goes for their respective selves, including me. Dashing forward, I press the attack against my clone self with my single sword style as opposed to my dual swords technique. The clone brings one of its swords up to block my attack, which it does, and tries to hit me with its free sword but I deflect that hit easily. Without the extra weight of either my shield or another sword, I can attack and defend much quicker, negating my opponent's dual sword combat ability.

The clone tries to slice with both swords towards my legs but I deflect both hits before twisting around slicing off its heads. I let out a smile before I quickly drop to the ground as it tries to take off my head. However that also gives it a perfect opportunity to nails me right in the face with its foot. "Oof!" I grunt as I flip back along the ground before gripping the sand with my left hand, forcing me to slide instead of flipping. Standing up, I watch as the clones head regenerates itself. "Pah." I spit out a bit of blood.

*Crack*

I twist my neck sharply, popping the bones in my neck several times and twirling my sword a couple times around me before gripping it with both hands. "Bring it." My challenges answered as the clone jumps at me. We clash just as it comes at me and we exchange a blows a few times. The clone hits me with one attack after another but my speed easily catches each one of its attacks and deflects the blows with a flurry of movements. When I go for its legs, it jumps up to dodge my attack and I do the same. We continue to fight back and forth, pushing each other, making the two of us fight for ground. My attacks don't do much to stifle its attacks while I start to feel fatigued and a couple cuts adorn my shirt. The clone brings both swords forward to slice at me and I jumps up… only for it to feign its attack and bring a leg up instead. "Agh!" I grunt as the foot impacts my stomach and sends me flying back. I slam into another rock hard before I slide down onto my hand and knees. "Damnit. Need a new plan. It just keeps regenerating. Maybe we can-" My talking to myself is interrupted as I look on in horror to my right as the Steven water clone has trapped Connie and Stevens heads in bubbles filled with water. Connie's lost her breath and Steven is struggling to get free. "Guys!" I yell and pull out my revolver, ready to attack again.

I don't get to fire as my truck suddenly barrels in from the side and completely grills the water clone Steven, breaking its stream to Steven and Connie, freeing them. The both of them fall to the ground and begin to cough and gag, catching their breaths and spitting out water.

"Connie!" Steven cries out and moves over to Connie.

"Guys!" I cry out as well and slide over to them. "You two okay?"

"Yeah, *Cough* we're fine." Connie manages to say. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Is this a NORMAL magical mission for you?" We look up to see Greg leaning out of the window of my truck back to us. Amazingly, despite the popped tires, Greg was still able to get my truck moving fast enough to cream the water clone.

' _Speaking of, where the hell did it go?'_ I look around to see if I can spot it but nothing.

"'Cause I'm not so sure how comfortable I am with you going on these any-mo-o-o-re!" Greg begins to tell Steven before my truck is suddenly picked up and thrown by water Steven, along with Greg who is still in it.

"Holy-" I watch as my truck goes soaring into the air before it crashes upside down.

"Dad!" Steven cries out as the three of us run over to him. The window stays in one piece so I try to pry the door open.

It's jammed shut tight. "Damnit!... Hold on Greg! We'll get you-" I twist my body to the side just as sword stabs itself through the space where the door opens up. Quickly, I swing my arm out and backhand the clone of me away from everyone. Once it goes flying away, I look down to still see its sword stuck in my door. Bringing my leg up, I kick the sword.

*Clang*

The sword breaks in half and turns to water but it manages to tear the door right open. "Take care of him." I quickly tell the kids towards Greg and charge the clone. I press the attack on the clone before it manages to reform its missing sword. We exchange blows once again but this time I have a better advantage because of my speed and the clone's lack of second weapon. I continue to slice the clone repeatedly, overrunning its attempts to deflect my attacks as I cut it again and again, the slices appearing on the water body over and over but quickly reforms itself back to normal soon after. None of us make any noticeable marks on us for a few seconds before I jump over and twist around with my sword following up.

*Clang* Both our swords impact against each other, causing us to lock our swords together and hold them like that. We try to push each other but our strength is on par with each other. _'My speed trumps my clone but our strength is equal. I need to figure out a way to keep these things from regenerating in order to win this-'_

"I DON'T WANNA FIGHT!"

The loud yell of my friends defiance along with a loud metallic ringing noise makes me flinch. I feel a small quake shake me but for my clone, it completely destabilizes its form and turns to water. "The hell?" I question. Looking up, I notice all the other clones disappear as well. I look over to where I heard Steven's voice and look to an amazing sight. Steven stands there in front of Connie and Greg with a shield in front of him. The pink shield with the rose like symbol and pattern on it leads me to believe it's his summon weapon. Rose Quartz's shield. _'Hm… so that's your mother's weapon.'_ I think with a smile.

His shield makes a metallic clanging noise as it starts to fold in on itself and disappear. He begins to walk forward towards the spire.

"Steven?" Connie says his name in question. He walks past me and stands next to the spire of water.

"Lapis, I'm coming up to see you. ...So please don't drown me."

"Hold it!"

"Wait, Steven!"

Connie and I try to stop our friend but fail. He grunts as he jumps into the water tower. I'm about ready to jump in and pull him out but I watch some water construct forms under him and lifts him to the top of the tower.

"Steven!" I yell as I watch him go up.

"Marcus!" I turn back at the mention of my name and see Connie, Lion and the gems run up to me. "What's going on?! Where's he going?" Pearl asks frantically.

I look back to the spire and stare at it for a little bit. "Hopefully…" I turn back to my friends. "To talk some sense into her." I mutter. I walk up to the spire. "Lapis! I'm coming up too!" I call out. I get no confirmation or denial from her. "Stay here." I tell them and walk into the water.

"Marcus!" They call out to me as well but I press on. The water completely envelops me as I step in. The whole thing feels absolutely surreal and actually kind of relaxing… at least until a shark spots me.

' _Oh son of a-!'_ My frantic thoughts are suddenly interrupted when just as the shark comes at me, I'm suddenly thrust upwards. The water completely rushes past me and I start to feel a little light-headed from the rush of the water around me. _'Hope I don't get the bends.'_ I steady myself on the water hand I'm standing on and do what I can to calm my breathing while on my trip in the water.

* * *

"*Gasp*!" I gasp out as my head finally hits air. The water hand turns to water before me and collapse on a harder surface tension of the water around me.

"Don't you know anything, Steven?" I look up to see Steven encompassed in a bubble of water with Lapis right in front of him. _'Looks like I came up just as a conversation is taking place.'_ "Your friends, they don't really care about other Gems. All they care about is the Earth. But I never believed in this place..." Lapis says a little angrily before looking up towards space. She begins to walk away from him and finally releases him from his bubble.

"Wha... ?" He questions in confusion. I move over to him and crouch down.

"You good?" I ask. He nods before looking towards Lapis. She sits down some feet away from us as she continues to stare into space. Steven gets up and walks over to her while I can't help but look over the side of the tower. "Whoa." I say in awe as I see just how high up we are. Looking to just how high up we are, how much of the earth I can see and the practical closeness of the space, we must be just under the first layer of the atmosphere since we can still breathe here. "Maybe I should try to develop some kind of rebreather so I don't have to worry about lack of air sit-"

"I just want to go home..." I break myself from my muttering to focus back on my friends.

"I know how important home can be." Steven begins to say, hopefully to maybe appeal to her. "But that's why I'm here…" He glances back to me as I walk up behind them. "Why we're here. You took the ocean away, and the ocean is an important part of our home."

"He's right Lapis." I say as I sit down next to her. Both of them look to me as I stare out to space. "I know full fledged gems don't need to eat, sleep, or drink to live… but humans do. Earth is… in a somewhat imbalance state right now. Some people don't… get the resources they need to live and the ocean…" I turn to look at her directly. "It's a very important part of the planet, Lapis. More than I think you realize." I say somberly.

"I'm only using the ocean because my gem is cracked." She tries to reason to us. "If I just stretch it far enough..." She begins to say but sighs in defeat. "This is never going to work." She hugs herself in sadness.

I slowly touch her shoulder, making her look at me with a little bit of sadness in her clear white eyes. "We'll find a way to help Lapis. We'll-" The gears in my head start to turn as her words begin to click together. "Wait, your gem s cracked?" I ask her. She nods and turns the top part of her body to the side to show me the gem on her back. The crack is clear as day. My eyes widen as I slightly lean over to look at Steven. The happy look on his face tells me he figured it out as well. I can't help but slap both my hands onto my face. "I'm such an idiot."

"Why?" She asks me but I just shake my head at my obliviousness of the whole situation and the possibility of all this fighting being avoided.

"I can fix your gem! I have healing powers." Steven proclaims loudly and happily.

"Wait, you have healing powers?" She asks incredulously at him.

"I know, right?" He replies.

"And you knew?" She asks me now.

"Yeeeess." I groan out and shake my head some more. "I was oblivious to your gem being cracked and if I just told you he could heal you then maybe…" I let out a strangled groan as I flop onto my back. "God damnit."

"Oh… well, what should I..." She begins to say as she turns her back to Steven.

"Oh, uh, sorry. This might be a little weird." He says uncomfortably while rubbing the back of his head.

"What?" She asks in confusion.

"Heeeeeey, yoooouuuu." I say somewhat awkwardly as I quickly lean up and stare at her face.

"What are you doing?" she asks in confusion. Slightly looking behind her, I see Steven licking his hand.

"Oh you know. I just wanna talk. Maybe get to know you, find out what you like, distractyoufrommyfriend, ask you what you love to do…" I trail off, coming up short on what to say.

"Wait wait wait. What was that about-"

*Splat*

"Ughhhhhhh." She shudders.

"Yeeeeeaaaahhh, not a pleasant feeling I can imagine." I tell her. She freezes for a second before her eyes begin to glaze over. Steven walks a few steps away from her so I join him as we see her gem begin to glow and heal itself. Her gem is restored before us. She turns back to us I instantly notice her eyes have become what would define normal. Now they're blue and she smiles at us.

"Woooow." I say in awe as Steven lets out a gasp.

"Thank you, Steven!" She thanks him immediately. I don't try to correct her or signal Steven to give me credit because let's be honest, it was all him.

"No prob, Bob." He says as he wipes his spit-covered hand on his pants.

I alo can't help but notice how much silence there is when Steven said that. "... It's Lapis." She says, not realizing what it actually meant.

"It's a metaphor Lapis. He knows your name really isn't Bob." I tell her to clear things up.

"Oh, right." She says embarrassingly with a small blush.

"Yeah, its fine. Well we should probably be heading home just as you will be. C'mon Steven." I wave the kid over to me so we could prepare to head down.

"Coming." He replies.

"Wait." A cold hand grabs my wrist. Looking down to it and up the arm, Lapis stopped me. "Could I… talk to you?... Alone, please." She asks of me. She doesn't look directly at me and is staring at the floor instead.

"Oh, uh, okay." I agree and look over to Steven. "Hey man, could you… chill over there for a second while Lapis and I talk?" I point over to the other side of the platform we're standing on.

"Okay." He simply says and walks over to his destination. I watch as he stands near the edge and lie down so he could look over the edge.

"Alright, so what did you-" I'm interrupted as Lapis suddenly brings me into a hug. My eyes widen at the sudden contact but I calm myself and return it.

"I'm sorry, Marcus." She apologizes.

"For what?" I ask her.

"F-for the fighting. I'm sorry I attacked you like that. You were my friend and I just-"

"Lapis." I pull her off me and hold her at arm's length, making sure she looks at my face. She stops her frantic talking and stares at me. "It's okay. No permanent damage to me or the others." I pat her shoulders. "Water under the bridge." She gives me a confused look at my words. "Another metaphor. It basically means I'm past the whole thing."

"Oh, okay. That's good." She says with a little happiness in her voice.

"Yeah. Yeah, its all good." I say and look over to Steven. He seems to be looking intently over the edge and point around, no doubt maybe trying to find his home or something else he might recognize.

"I'm still sorry though."

"I know."

"About the fighting,"

"Nothing permanently broken."

"About your shield,"

"I can piece it together."

"Betraying your friendship,"

"You didn't."

"And- Wait, what?!" She asks in surprise at my last statement.

"You didn't betray me." I firmly tell her with a smile.

"Bu-but-"

"Lapis," I quickly interrupt her before she starts stuttering. "You have been trapped for I don't know how long. The prison you were in sounds like hell to me and to top it all off, this isn't your home." I look out to space. "Somewhere out there is." I point into space in general."

"But I-" I raise my hand to stop her.

"Lapis… I've had some friends for sometime over the years. I understand the situation you're in. I know how you feel being somewhere where you think you don't belong. I'm not going to stop being friends with you just because you're still trying to figure out what you're going to do." I firmly tell her, making sure she knows that I meant what I meant. Her mouth opens and closes for a second before I let out a small chuckle, "Besides, it's been awhile since I faced someone one-on-one like that. Usually I fight monsters several times bigger than me. Going up against someone on equal terms like me… it was actually nice now that I look back on it." _'The exhilaration of that fight was pretty cool. I should really sword spar with Pearl. She can give me a run for my money. Maybe some sparring with Garnet. Give her a chance to get back at me for the humiliating defeat I gave her-'_

And Lapis interrupts me again with another hug. I smile and return it. "I can't thank you enough for your help Marcus." She tells me and I notice she's slightly crying.

"It's alright." We break the hug. "I got your back Lapis." I tell her.

She gives me a comforting smile and carefully wipes the tears from her eyes. She turns around and looks at space for a bit before right before my eyes, two water construct wings appear on her back, emanating from her gem.

"Whoa." I quickly say. I take a step back in case she prepares herself to take off but instead she turns back to me with a smile.

"You know, you could come back with me? I have more than enough strength to carry you all the way to Homeworld if you want." She offers to me. I stare at her for a few seconds before I shift my attention to space.

' _Homeworld… I can go to the gem home planet. I can find some definite answers to my life. To how my mother is. Maybe find records about the war and so much more!'_ A smile starts to form on my face at the amount of info and tech I could find… but it peters off soon after. _'But… if I leave… I leave some of my friends. I leave the planet I've lived on. The place I've defended monsters from. The place I…'_ My train of thought stops as I come to a decision.

"Thank you Lapis. But I'm afraid I have to decline." I politely tell her.

"Oh." Her mood visibly deflates at the fact she's going home alone. I reach over and gently lift her head from under her chin so she can look at me.

"It's not just because I'll be abandoning people who consider me family here. But there's also some biological and physical aspects that'll prevent me from going as well. For one thing, I need oxygen in order to survive out there or I'll suffocate. If I don't have something to completely cover my entire body from space itself, then my blood will boil me alive. Not to mention I have no idea how long it would take for us to actually get to Homeworld. Food and water would be an issue as well." I explain to her why I can't go. "Let's be honest Lapis. Even if we manage to get all that stuff, I'll be a massive burden on you the whole ride there and I'm pretty sure you can't carry all that." She looks down at the hopelessness of me going with her. I gently pat her shoulder, making her look at me. "Lapis. Get going." I tell her with a head nod towards space. "You've been gone for too long. Stuck in one place for too long. Enjoy your freedom. Don't let me hold you back." I say with a hand wave to the void of space. "Besides you know where I live. Come visit when you get the chance. Or send a message. Whichever." I shrug. She looks at me for a silent few more seconds before staring intently at space. She does that for a little bit before looking at me again.

"Okay, Marcus. I don't like it but… I'll go." She says a little sadly but resigns to head on home.

"Good." I say and look to space. "Good. Now be careful on your journey because chances there might be some black holes and-"

"Mwh."

I freeze up. All coherent thoughts completely leaving my mind as I feel a set of lips plant themselves on my cheek. The kiss is soft and a little cold but pleasant nonetheless. I stand frozen there for a few seconds before I slowly turn to Lapis with my mouth agape. "Thank you. Both of you."

"No problem." I almost jump out of my skin at Steven's words.

"How did you-"

"Bye." Before I could questions Steven's stealth capability, Lapis says her farewell and jumps up. We both watch as she flaps her water wings in the air towards the void of space.

"See ya." I quietly say. I also can't help but lightly touch the spot where she kissed me. I smile. _'There she goes. She's gone. She's finally heading home. Good, that's good. She needs to head home. Earth isn't her home and she-'_

"Wait, if she made the tower, what's keeping it from-"

*Rumble*

I look sternly at Steven. "You just had to say something." I tell him.

Before he can retort, the tower rumbles even harder and the platform we are standing on collapses away, more so for Steven. "I'm Sooooorrrrrrryyy!" He screams as he falls to the planet.

"Steven!" I call out to him. I lean forward and push myself after him. "I'm coming!"

"Aaaaahh! Whoooaaa-aaaah!" He screams as he jerks all around from the falling pieces of the tower.

' _Almost there… almost there…'_ I straighten myself out and head straight for the kid. Thankfully, his flailing about makes him lose speed while I gain some. I extend my arms out and grab him. "Gotcha!"

"Marcus!" He says in surprise and grips me tightly.

"I gotcha! I gotcha! Hold on tight!" I tell him to as I reorient myself to have my back face the ground. _'Fuck. This is gonna hurt.'_ I think as I mentally try to prepare myself for the impact on the planet. The times I've landed on the ground from impossible heights I was able to because I landed on my feet and I was prepared. Now I'm falling from space without my feet. _'This is really gonna hu-'_

My thoughts are interrupted as I watch a pink portal open up before us. Connie and Lion emerge from said portal. "Grab my hand!" She yells to us with an extended hand. Steven and I both reach out to grab it but we continue to fly back away from her, our combined weight preventing them from being able to catch up with us. "No!" She cries out as we continue to move away.

"Connie!" Steven yells out her name. "Marcus! What are we going to do?!" I looks back to me and asks. I look all around us a few times, seeing anything that I could use to slow us down. I can't move myself to hit the water blocks to slow our descent, not with him and me-

An idea sparks in my mind. One that I'm sure Steven wouldn't like. I turn him around and hold him at arm's length. "Take care buddy!"

"Wha-?!"

"Ngh!" I yell as I plant both my feet on his chest and gently but forcefully push him towards Connie and Lion. The opposing force propels me faster towards the ground but Connie manages to grab Steven.

"Marcus!" I hear him call out to but I ignore him and look to the planet.

I fly down the collapsing spire at almost supersonic speed, at least that's what it feels like. After I managed to push Steven to Connie, it sent me flying away from them even harder, preventing any hope of them grabbing me because of my speed at heading to the ground. I thin out my body as much as I can, turning myself into a human bullet so I have an easier time in changing my trajectory but at the cost of speed. I cross my arms in front of my face to protect myself from the blocks of water around me. I purposely aim for the falling blocks of water to slow my descent as much as I can.

The water hits hard against me but I don't stay in them long as I make human sized holes in them at the speed I go. _'Guess it's true at what people say, "Hit water at a high enough speed or high enough height, you'd might as well be hitting concrete."'_ Right now the water impacting against me feels like I'm hitting stone but gets less hurtful with each hit.

Before long, I'm getting pretty close to the ground at this point and my speed as drastically reduced. Now I'm no longer heading to the ground at an angle but now I'm free falling. Instead of bullet form, I extend my arms and legs out to slow my descent even more. Now in free fall form, I can still manage to reorient myself around to the water blocks but I can't go too slow, otherwise the ocean will start to form again and I'll really hit it like concrete.

* * *

Everyone at the bottom of the spire look up at the collapsing building, looking to see if they can spot their friends anywhere, Greg in a more worried sense at the safety for his child. A little while after Connie and Lion, left they teleport back with Steven on them.

"Steven!" Greg cries out from his position next to Pearl because of his broken leg at seeing his son safe and sound but also in worry at the collapsing building.

"Dad!" Steven cries out and hugs his dad.

"Steven!" Pearl gets his attention. "Where's Marcus?!" She asks worriedly.

"He's still falling!"

"What?!" The gems all ask him in surprise.

"They were falling too fast!" Connie begins to explain. "He pushed Steven away so I could grab him but he was sent falling faster to the ground!"

"What do we do?!" Steven asks the gems. They look into the air in order to try and find their friend but see nothing at first.

"There!" Amethyst points at a block of water that completely breaks apart as something impacts it hard. Garnet prepares herself to jump to catch their friend but he falls faster than anticipated. Several feet away from them, something impacts the ground.

"Marcus!" Everyone yells as they hobble over to the crater. More water continues to hit the ground around them and immediately begins to rise above their ankles. The crater is no better as it fills up again. They make it to the edge and look in.

* * *

Mayor Dewey continues to cry while still pouring water onto the sand via the hose. His haggard form makes him look outright horrible until water begins to splash against him. "... Huh?" He questions after noticing the water.

"Yes! Babe city, here we com- Whoa!" Lars's dreams of seeing women in bikini's are suddenly interrupted as Sadie simply pushes Lars into the now returning ocean in annoyance.

Elsewhere, a giant pink bubble made by one Steven Universe slowly floats out of the water with everyone one that left to go see Lapis, plus one, along with the vehicles side by side with each other. As soon as the bubble completely comes out of the water and on dry land, he unbubbles it. With a thud, both vehicles land roughly on the ground, with Garnet, Amethyst and Lion standing atop Greg's van while everyone else was riding on the back of Marcus's truck and Marcus and Pearl are in the front seats.

"That's how you do it!" Amethyst compliments the young human-gem. Everyone lets out gasps and grunts as well as laughter all around at the situation everyone's well-being.

Well for the people they're alright but the vehicles aren't in as good a shape. Greg's van has some slight dents to it but nothing to warrant repairs. Marcus's truck however falls apart even more now that it's out of the bubble. The tires completely come off axles, the doors either pop off or hang on barely, and all the windows are completely cracked or broken.

"Ehehehe, well look on the bright side Marcus," Pearl begins to say to the driver. "At least it can't get any worse."

*Boom*

Everyone jumps as a loud noise breaks through the calm atmosphere around them. The source of the loud noise: the trucks hood shoots open as a large billow of white smoke emanates from the engine block. "Ugh." Marcus groans as he slams his face into the ring of his steering wheel.

"Look!" Connie's voice breaks Marcus out of his slump and makes everyone look down the beach to see a large crowd of people running to them. Steven jumps out of the back of the truck and goes to greet the crowd but Mayor Dewey immediately embraces him followed by the crowd. The citizens of Beach City begin cheering and laughing at seeing the ocean finally returned to them. Marcus goes to open his door but his mood deflates even more as the door falls to the ground. The sailor Yellowtail helps Greg stand after he gets out of the back of the truck because of his still broken leg. Connie laughs a little at the show of affection that Steven is getting from the citizens, especially from the mayor, and Amethyst can't help but hug Lion.

Marcus however distances himself from everyone by walking over to the waters edge. He sighs at the memory of seeing his friend leave the planet, his broken shield and his destroyed vehicle. He looks down and watches as his shield washes up on the shore at his feet and leans down to pick up the pieces. "We're sorry."

He turns back to see Pearl and Garnet walking up to him. "We should have had more faith in you." Garnet tells him.

"It's fine." He reply's.

"No it's-"

"Garnet." He interrupts her. "Fact of the matter is, this is the first time we've come to blows and I think I can forgive you this time. Especially since you were oblivious to Lapis's prison…" He turns his head slightly to look at them sideways, "Right?"

"Yes." Garnet agrees.

"We really are sorry. We didn't know you would be willing to leave like that because we wouldn't tell you. I guess we didn't give you much to go on by keeping quiet." Pearl tries to reason. He looks at them for a few more seconds, staring at them before he sighs and fully turns to them.

"*Sigh*, realistically guys, I can't be mad you and you can't be mad at me. The army that protects this planet isn't exactly filling with members and I'm too much of an asset to you guys to just piss off like that." I try to reason to them about not making me mad. True, my skills have really helped them out more times than I can count. They also need me should they require specific equipment or to keep certain humans off their backs. "Plus," He looks over to Steven who is still being manhandled by the crowd and smiles. "You guys are the closest people I have to a family. I think I can forgive a few squabbles." He simply says with a shoulder shrug. "From now on, we don't keep secrets that could endanger lives. Whether ours or others, we come clean. Personal past moments I think we can understand keeping secret for now but if something comes back from our past that tries to hurt us, we come clean." He extends his hand for a shake. "Deal?"

"Deal." Garnet agrees with a smile and shakes his hand.

*Pop*Pop*Pop*

Albeit a bit roughly as her grip pops the bones in Marcus's hand in multiple fingers and his wrist. "Don't think I forgot the fight we had before you left. I intend to have a real one so you're not going anywhere." She firmly tells him while still keeping the smile and grip.

"I wouldn't miss it." He agrees with the same smile. She lets him go and turns back to pry Steven from the crowd. "Ahhhhhhhhhh." Marcus quietly breathes out at the pain coursing through his nearly broken hand as he grips it with the other.

"You okay?" Pearl asks the in-pain hybrid as he almost falls to his knees.

"Ahhhhh… yep. Yeah I'm good." He reassures her as he shakes his hand free of any pain and flexes it. "I guess I deserved that. That's what I get for basically kicking that gem in the face you know? Ow." He says.

"Hm hm, yes I believe so." She lightly chuckles at his distress. The two then delve into a slight uncomfortable silence between them since this is the first time they are alone since Marcus's abrupt departure before.

"Listen, Pearl." He begins to say. "I'm sorry about- Oh!" He is interrupted as instead of letting him finish, she hugs him instead.

"I'm happy your back Marcus." She says through closed eyes. He hesitates a little before returning the hug back wholeheartedly. They stay like that for a few seconds before they both let go. "I don't know if you realize it, but you've made quite an impact on all of us." She looks over to the group people as Garnet is holding Steven high above her head in the middle of everyone.

"Yeah, I guess I did." He agrees with a smile. If it wasn't for Steven telling him how he was family before he left, there could have been a higher chance that Marcus would have left with Lapis.

Speaking of Lapis, he looks up to the sky from where his friend departed. "So, Lapis made it off planet." Pearl says as the two of them stand side-by-side and stare at the sky.

"Yep." Marcus simply says.

"What do you think this mean for us?" Pearl asks her friend.

He purses his lips, thinking for a sec at the ramification of him letting the trapped gm leave the planet. "We wait and see." He answers.

Satisfied with the answer, she turns back and leaves him to his thoughts. The crowd continues cheering as they follow Garnet while carrying Steven above them all. He notices that he's looking into the sky as well.

"Good luck out there, Lapis." Marcus says to himself. He tucks the pieces of his shield under his arm and walks back to the temple.

' _Wherever you are.'_ He thinks, almost mirroring Steven's tone and words as well.

 **Sorry for keeping you guys waiting like this. To be honest, the whole 'Reviews not showing up' thing was really freaking me out so I may have gotten lazy in writing this next chapter. Not lazy as in content, which I hope is alright and still good for you guys, but lazy as in actually writing it.**

 **Two sets of good news is, one of my teachers cancelled class for the next two week for us to catch up on our work, which I don't need to, so while I don't have to do any work for that class, it gives me that much more time to work on this story for you guys. I'll do what I can to get the next couple chapters out for you guys. I'm really excited for the next set of chapters and I hope I continue to entertain you guys.**

 **The second good news is that the review system is working again so go ahead and review to your heart's content. Hopefully it'll stay good for a good long while now. I have noticed the review system still isn't perfect and there are a few moments where the reviews still glitch out but all the reviews everyone uploaded during the term when the reviews weren't coming up at all, they are there now. So at least it's not a permanent thing.**

 **Also I don't think I ever apologized to you guys about the grammar issues that tend to pop up. I apologize for that and I'll do what I can to limit that from happening but if the issue ever gets too bad that you can't stand to read it, tell me and I'll try to crack down on it. However you have to realize that that might also limit the quickness for which I upload my work. Sorry.**

 **With that, see you later and have fun reading.**


	19. 18 House Guest

Things have gotten pretty normal considering the whole fiasco with Lapis and the ocean. I'm still a little surprised at the kiss that Lapis gave me before she left and it was hard not to think about it. She kissed me! Technically, that was the first kiss I ever had. To say that the whole situation wasn't in the least bit jarring would be an understatement. Regardless, there isn't a whole a whole lot I can do about it because of Lapis's departure so for now. I'm busying myself right now with something a bit more important.

"Wow. Those water constructs really did a number on your truck Marcus. Hmm..." Pearl points out as she examines my engine a little closer.

"Yeah, no kidding. Man it's amazing at the amount of power she has. And it was when her gem was cracked too! Can't imagine what she would be capable of now." I say while looking at where my tires are supposed to go. Just from looking at my vehicle it's going to take a bit of work to get it running again.

"Ah, give it a rest, you guys. That thing will be busted forever." Amethyst meanwhile can't help but voice her useless thoughts on the matter while sitting down and leaning beside the car wash while crossing her arms behind her head.

"And would you please shut up." I sternly tell her before going back to my examination. "I don't tell you on whether or not your stuff is broken forever or not. Wait, isn't your room full of decade old garbage?!"

"Hey, that stuff-!"

"I for one completely disagree on the matter." Pearl quickly interrupts our argument before it starts. "It's just a simple human machine. I'm sure that I can figure this whole thing out before you know it!" She happily says.

"It's not so much figuring out what's wrong at this point Pearl." I say as I push myself onto my feet and shine a flashlight into my engine. "I know this things insides fairly well so mostly we just need to get the parts and materials to fix it. Then it's just a matter of time once we get everything." I explain while shining the light deep into the engine, noticing more than a few tubes that are either torn or ripped entirely.

"Well that's good. At least we won't have to spend as much time figuring out what's wrong." She replies. I nod.

"Hey guys!" We stop our inspection of my vehicle to see Steven and Greg coming over to us.

"Zoop!" Greg says as he boosts himself along on a chair using a hockey stick. "I got something that will patch that truck up real good!" He says with confidence as he rummages through a toolbox.

Pearl can't help but gasp and cup her hands at the idea of what could be in the toolbox. "Is it some kind of complex human tool?" I quietly snigger at her enthusiasm.

' _Yeah, highly doubt that Pearl.'_ I think as I go back to trying to examine the bottom of my engine.

"Yup, high-quality duct tape!" I look up as Greg holds of said item. "Some well placed duct tape can patch anything up in a pinch, see?" He points to his broken leg that's fitted with a ruler and a stick duct-taped to it.

' _Huh, well he's not useless that's for sure. On top of his quick thinking at running over that water clone, at least he knows how to support a broken bone.'_

"I'm sure that we can fix this without your tape." She bluntly declines him, obviously a little peeved at not seeing a complex human tool. You'd think she be at least impressed with the plasma torches I've used to make my bombs.

"Aw c'mon! It's the least I can do for wreaking his ride. Sorry again for that." He apologizes to me.

"Ehhhh, its fine. It wasn't really your fault that my truck got wrecked like this." I reassure him. "However I will take your tape." I quickly swipe the tape from his outstretched hand. "I'm sure I can find a use for it." I place it on the roof of my truck and go back to my engine.

"Well, gee, at least let me give you a hand." Greg tries to stand up to help us by trying to stand using his hockey stick. He fails however as he falls back down in his chair, due to his weak leg. Steven runs over to him to help him.

"I'm sorry that you hurt your leg and that your van got smashed up because of me." Steven apologizes to him.

He smiles as he pats Steven's head. "You apologize too much. Maybe I shouldn't have tagged along in that crazy adventure. But at least I got to spend some time with my fave guy! Besides it's not that smashed up." We all glance at his van nearby. It's true, the only thing really broken is a few miscellaneous items inside and an indentation in the side of it the shape of my body. "I'm still surprised you were able to get up after that Marcus. Let alone hold up that giant shield. You sure your alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine Greg. Trust me, I've faced much worse injuries." I glance at both Amethyst and Garnet, getting an embarrassed look from the both of them. "Much… much worse." I go back to my engine.

"What if you stayed with us until you got better?" Steven proposes.

"Hey, that's a great idea! But, won't I get in the way of your training?" He asks.

"Yes!" Pearl quickly says without any hesitation.

"Pearl! Rude." I scold her.

"Wait, Steven." Amethyst gets the kids attention as she sits up. "Don't you have healing powers now?"

"Oh yeah, he does." I say, remembering the kids talent.

"Oh, right, yes!" Pearl smiles nervously. "You fix Greg, I'll fix the van, and we can fix the truck! And nobody has to live with us." She murmurs the last part to herself.

"Eh-hem." I catch her attention.

"Oh, but of course I could never forget you Marcus!" She says with an almost cringe-worthy nervousness about her.

"Mh-hm." I moan out a confirmation as I start to tear out the pieces that aren't working anymore _'Wow, she must really not like Greg.'_

"Yeah! Mm-hmm! Here goes something new and exciting." Steven says and licks his hand, covering it in his healing saliva. "And... go!" He slaps his hand onto Greg's leg. He tenses up at the contact but calms down soon after. "Okay, you should be better now."

"Okay, if you say so." Greg tries to stand up with some difficulty but he falls back in his chair.

"Why didn't it work?" Steven asks in a disappointed tone.

"Hey, sorry, buddy. Maybe you just need a little more practice." Greg tries to reassure his son of his apparent failure.

"But... I was doing so well before!" Steven instead cries out.

"Steven, don't worry about it. Your powers are a bit fickle, after all." Pearl deduces.

"Just give it a bit more time." Garnet chimes in.

"Besides," I speak up, pulling out a broken sparkplug from inside the engine. "From what I can remember, your powers mostly worked on gem injuries. If it didn't help your dads leg, maybe it's because he's fully human." I throw in my two cents on the matter. True the healing stuff worked on me when my body was severely beat up at the fountain but I'm also a gem. That could account for it.

"That is a possibility." Pearl says with a hand to her chin.

"But wait, what about Connie? I healed her eyes remember?"

' _Damn, there goes that idea.'_ I think, remembering Connie's little freak out at not needing glasses anymore. "Well… her injury wasn't so much an injury. More like… a genetic defect I guess you could say." I try to reason. At this point I'm trying to bullshit a good enough excuse so Steven won't feel as bad.

"Oh who cares!" Greg pipes up and grabs his son in a cheerful headlock. "Cheer up, Steven! At least now we get to spend some more time together, right?" He tries to cheer his son up.

"Yeah, right." He succeeds.

"Anything you can find?" Pearl asks me. I look a bit more I can swear I see some more broken parts but there at the very bottom and I can't fully see or reach them.

"Yeeeaaaaah, sort of. Can't reach it though." I click off the flashlight and motion for Pearl to stand back. "Garnet, can you give me a lift please?" Without a word, she reaches forward, grips the bumper of my truck and picks it up effortlessly. "Thank you. Now let me see if I can-"

*Crash*

"HOO-AH!" Steven yelps. We all stare at the engine that completely fell out.

"Marcus, why is your eye twitching?" I hear Pearl's voice but right now I'm doing everything in my power to keep from raging.

"I'm done." I bluntly say as I drop the flashlight. Without another word, I turn right around and start heading back to the house.

"But-"

"Nope." With my final say, I continue on.

* * *

Guns were always my strong suit as well as most other items but cars, I know how my ride works but the amount of damage… I'm too tired to deal with this. So instead I chose to chill out at the temple.

Or I did.

Steven and his dad came soon after and spent the entire day playing around, having fun, being… happy.

It was nice watching Steven and his dad have some quality time with each other but I also felt angry. Angry at my own father. Needless to say I vacated the house before I did something I would regret. It didn't help much though since they came out a little while after I did and Steven started hosing his dad down of soda. They were still laughing at the whole thing, having utter joy in each other's company.

"Raaargh!"

*Boom*

Which is why I waited until they went back inside before I let out a cry of rage and punch the rock face on the side of the mountain, sending a crack straight to the top, thankfully missing the temple itself and the statue.

I breathe in and out harshly for a few seconds before I calm myself down. I turn to head back to the car wash but I stop at seeing Pearl right behind me holding a box of parts, surprise etched on her face. _'Shit.'_

"What was that?" she asks.

"Nothing." I say as I walk past her.

"That…" She drops the box of parts and roughly grabs my shoulder. "Wasn't nothing." She points to the crack. "What's going on?" She asks me.

I clench my fists tightly before I let them relax. I slowly turn my head to the side and look at her before nodding to the top of the cliff. I walk out of her grip and proceed to walk to the top of the mountain near the lighthouse. For a second my footsteps are all I hear but Pearl follows me.

I make it to the top of the cliff and stop at the edge where the crack appeared. "Okay, we're here. Talk." She orders me.

I take a moment to compose myself so I don't fly off the deep end. "You've seen the relationship that Steven has with his dad… right?" She nods in my peripheral. "Good. The happiness… the good… the fun…" I slightly spat out the words.

"I don't get it. You've been really supportive of Steven and helped him as much as you can since you've been here. Why is his relationship with Greg making you hate it so?" She asks confused.

"He he he, you think I'm mad at him? No, I'm not. I'm happy. I'm elated that he has a father as good as Greg. He gives him love, support, safety, the embodiment that a father needs to give their son."

"Then why are you-"

"I'm not angry at their father-son relationship!" I interrupt her, my voice pitching slightly higher and higher with each word. "I'm angry at mine!" I tell her finally.

She remains silent at my words. "What?" She asks confused.

"Huuuuu." I let out a sigh and sit down on the edge of cliff. She joins me soon after. "Pearl, while Greg handled it alright when Rose… left, right?" I ask her. She looks down solemnly at the reminder of her friend's departure, but she nods nonetheless to my question. "While Greg was a father to Steven… mine wasn't."

"What do you mean?" She asks quietly.

I stay silent for a second before taking a deep breath. "When my mom left, and made me… my dad, Michael, wasn't supportive. Oh no, he hated me. I don't know what relationship they had for when she would have me but it obviously failed. When she left me with him, that's when my entire life went to hell. He didn't care about me. He only cared about her. He took care of me enough to live but every day I was a reminder, a mistake to him." I spat out, my emotions riling of as I remember what he used to do. "He would beat me, most of the time randomly. Put me down, tell me I was nothing. Told me that my mother a thousand times better than me, said she should never have had me because I took her away from him." I tell her. I continue to stare out into the ocean's surface but I can still feel Pearls eyes on me. "Some days he'd just beat me, others he'd whip me, step on me… days when he would be drinking or smoking… throwing a bottle at me or… using me as an ashtray."

"Oh, Marcus." I hear her.

"You can't see the scars anymore. They disappeared when Rose's fountain washed over me. For years, I endured his bullshit treatment, constantly getting hurt for no reason and never getting any answers for what I am or who my mom was. He felt I never deserved the answers. Well, one day, 5 years ago, I talked back, fed up with his treatment of me." I touch the side of my head. "He didn't take it well."

* * *

 _*Crash*_

" _Aaah!" I yell as the bottle impacts the side of my head, breaking on impact and showering me with its content and glass. I fall to the ground from the hit and feel the alcohol wash over me._

" _HOW DRE YOU TALK BACK TO ME?!" I hear my father's voice scream at me. "I AM YOUR FATHER AND YOU'LL SHOW ME SOME RESPECT!"_

" _Respect? RESPECT?!" I scream at him while holding the side of my head, stopping the cut from getting any worse. "How can I show you respect when you've never shown me anything?! Nothing! You've never helped me whatsoever! All you do is beat and hurt me! You haven't even told me about these!" I yell as I stand and point to the gems on my shoulders. He scowls as I point to them. "You've never even told me about mo-!"_

 _*SLAP*_

 _I fall as he back hands me. "You insolent runt! Don't you even talk about her! You don't deserve to even have her gems!" I hear him grip something but I'm too dazed to see. "You were a mistake… one that I mean to fix." I hear him lowly say._

" _Arrrrrghhh!" I yell in pain as he roughly turns me around and stabs me with the broken bottle in my shoulder. He twists it a little, digging more into me._

" _You. Are. Nothing." He hisses at me, the scent of alcohol on his breathe evident even through the haze of pain. "You aren't her and you'll never be her!" He yells in my face. He tears the bottle up and brings it over his head. "NOW DIE!"_

" _NOOO!" I yell as I grab a broken shard of glass and swing it at me._

" _Gah!" He chokes as my attack slices his hand. Taking the opportunity, I jump to my feet and head for the front door. "You're nothing! You little shit!" I hear his voice faintly as I run away._

* * *

"After that, I ran. I just… ran and ran for I don't know how long until my legs gave out from exhaustion. The good thing was that none of my wounds got infected because of the alcohol he splashed on me. It was just a matter of closing them up but I wasn't too destroyed after that." I finish tell her.

"Wow, I never realized that humans could be so… cruel. Especially to their offspring." She says a little sadly.

"Yeah." I say in the same tone. "Some have good reasons for their actions, others don't. Most of the time it's a matter of perspective and their mental state of mind. Guess I drew the short end of straw on my dad."

"I'm so sorry Marcus. You didn't deserve that kind of life." She tries to comfort me.

"Hm, thanks Pearl." I thank her and stand up. I extend a hand to help her up. She takes it and I easily pull her onto her feet. "It's not your fault, you had no power over it so I don't accept your apology…" I place a hand on her shoulder and smile. "But I appreciate it nonetheless." She smiles at my new attitude compared to before. "I don't hate Steven, or Greg, whatsoever so if you think I'm going to do something rash to them, don't worry, I'm not that far gone." I reassure her.

"That's good to hear."

"Yep." I look around the landscape for a bit, noticing how low the sun is on the horizon, before my eyes stop on the car wash. "Look, Pearl. I don't think I'm going to work on my truck anymore. I think I'm just going to relax for a bit, you know?" I tell her.

"That's fine. I think I'll go head and check on Greg's van to make sure everything is in working order. We'll work on yours later."

"Thank you, Pearl." I thank her and proceed to head down the cliff. "Hey, Pearl?" She turns to look at me. "Please don't tell the others, okay? I only told you because you asked. If they ask you, point them to me."

"Of course, Marcus." She agrees with a slight bow.

"Thanks. You're the best." I compliment her and continue heading home. "Night."

"Goodnight!"

* * *

Soon, Marcus walks into the house and prepares himself for bed. Unbeknownst to him, Pearl watched him walk from the beach with a sad look about her at the knowledge of her friend.

"Oh Marcus. I'm so sorry you had to deal with such a cruel man." She says quietly to herself. Truly, she knew some humans can be cruel people but she never heard of firsthand accounts of abuse on that scale. Thinking about the similarity between him and Steven, she's thankful that Steven never had to deal with anything like that. Looking down, she grabs the box of parts she had earlier and heads over to the car wash, her goal firmly set in mind.

* * *

"Bombs away!" I watch as Amethyst throws her paper airplane in the air. It twirls a bit before turning right and hits Greg in the head. Him, Steven and Amethyst start to laugh at the whole thing. I lightly chuckle as I polish one of my Beretta's.

It's the next day and I feel a bit better after my talk with Pearl. My feelings for her are still… complicated, but I can safely say things seem to be in the norm. We agreed that anything from our pasts that come back to haunt us are to be told to us, but as long as my dad doesn't come by looking for me, I can safely say it's nothing to worry about. The whole thing still sucks but I can't deny that my friends and new family are a way step up from what I had before.

*Creak*

The door opens, causing us all to look up… and my jaw drops.

Pearl walks in, covered in oil, no doubt from looking through Greg's engine. What does make my mind start to go… different, is she starts to clean herself up with a towel as she drops the toolbox she has. _'Oh my god… why do I find this so hot?'_ I question myself.

*Click*

The magazine in my pistol unceremoniously falls from the gun, snapping me from my thoughts. With a quick head shake, I quickly grab the magazine and go back to cleaning furiously without them noticing.

"You're back. The Geode is cracked, we must leave immediately." I hear Garnet say in her usual monotone voice.

"What?"

"Oh, no!"

"Steven, Marcus, you too."

"Awesome!" I say at Garnets order and jump off my chair before jogging to the warp pad.

"Yeah!" Steven stands up excitedly.

"Aw, really?" Greg asks.

"Oh, oh, yeah." Steven realizes that he's been taking care of his father this whole time.

"It's okay, Steven, I'll be fine. You go on your mission." Greg encourages his son.

"Are you sure?" Steven makes sure his dad is okay with it.

"Of course."

"Thanks Dad! We'll be back before you know it!" Steven says loudly and I join him in heading to the warp pad with the others.

"Don't worry about your old man... My leg's not getting any more broken. If I need something, I'll just... crawl." Greg attempts in a poor way to garner sympathy from us. I however can't help but roll my eyes. He starts to look teary eyed as he finishes up. "My arms are still not... broken."

"Oh, brother." Amethyst mutters as she and the others begin to walk off the warp pad except me.

"Marcus could you…?"

"On it." I quickly catch on to what Garnet is saying and activate the warp pad.

* * *

The dizzy-esque feeling I have disappears as I appear in front of my destination. From the look of the place, I'm in the right spot. The dark clouds and thunder strikes above me strike loudly and with massive force, sending tremors all along my body. I shake myself from the vibrations and examine the ground before me.

There is a large metallic sphere in a massive crater just in front of the warp pad. Without hesitation, I step off the pad and proceed to slide down the craters edges. I slow myself down when I go to stable ground in front of the massive crack adorning the structure. The thing has a dark black color to it while the crack is emanating a bright light to it. I place a tentative hand on the structure and get a feel for its composition. "Hm, a slight metal feel to it. The crack isn't any larger than my forearm. Maybe I can-" My contemplation of what to do is interrupted as I hear the warp pad activate.

Turning back, I spot Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven standing on the warp pad. "Man, this place is janked up." Amethyst comments.

"You're telling me!" I wave to them.

"Wow. Was there an explosion or something?" I hear Steven say barely through the storm. Judging from the massive crater I'm standing in, I can pretty much guess that this was a meteor at one point.

"Almost." Garnet walks forward off the pad.

"What you're looking at is a synthetic storm that was caused and contained in-" Pearls explanation gets interrupted as we hear a distinct whistling noise pierce the air waves, coming from the warp pad.

"Is that the Warp Whistle?"

"Warp what?" I ask in general to Amethyst's question.

"Ah! Dad needs me, I'll be right back!" Without missing a beat, Steven warps back to the Beach house.

"What's going on?" I ask Pearl as I walk up to her.

"We gave Greg the Warp Whistle to call us should he ever have an emergency."

"Ah. Okay." I nod to her explanation.

"Did you have any ideas for that crack?" Garnet asks me as she points to it.

"I have one. I was thinking-"

Steven warps back. "Sorry for the holdup!" He says loudly.

"Is everything okay?" Pearl asks the kid.

Amethyst sits down. "Hey, did Greg fall down and break his butt? Ha ha!" She laughs at her own question.

"That's not funny." Garnet says in an almost deathly serious tone.

' _Woah. Haven't heard of anyone else as serious about a broken butt than that one SpongeBob episode.'_ I think.

"I know." Apparently Amethyst knows the gravity of that situation because she looks down sadly.

"Like I was saying, this is a synthetic-"

And there goes the warp whistle again, interrupting Pearl yet again. "I'm sure it's very important." Steven predicts and warps back to the house.

"It's a what?" I turn to ask Pearl.

"*Sigh* This structure houses within it a synthetic storm so powerful that if it were to completely break open instead of just that crack, the storm would be unleashed at vaporize nearly anything within a 5 mile radius."

"Wooooooow." I voice my awe of the structure next to us. A structure able to create a synthetic storm… that's a lot of power for it have. "Hold it." I start to think of the possibilities it could be used for. "This synthetic storm, if contained enough, could it act just like a normal storm would? You know, thunder, lightning, dark clouds, massive rain fall?" I ask her.

"In a way, yes. The storm would mostly be used for it's powerful vaporizing potential thunder strikes but rain would accompany it." She explains while looking at the object. "Why?" She asks me.

"Hmmm." I think on the possibilities. _'I can see this both as a weapon and an agricultural boon. In war, it would be easy to place this in an enemy's supply route or troop movement and effectively cut them off if its strikes are as powerful as Pearl says. For a boon instead of weapon, if one were to… control just how much of the storm is let out, a synthetic storm anywhere, especially in water-starved parts of the world, would be perfect in preventing droughts. Especially in growing crops.'_ My mind goes through different scenarios and potentials this thing could go for. For good… or bad. "Hmmm."

The warp pad activated yet again, revealing Steven. "It was very important."

"Okay, so if the Geode breaks, then the storm will be unleashed and our bodies will be vaporized." Pearl quickly explains to the kid before anymore interruptions happen.

"Then... we'd be dead." He manages to deduce, thankfully without interruption.

"Pretty much." I agree with him.

"That's where you come in." Garnet speaks up and proceeds to direct Steven toward the crack.

"Say what?" He questions.

"You should try and seal that crack with your healing powers." Garnet proposes.

"But... what if I can't do it?" He asks dejectedly.

"It won't hurt to try." Garnet encourages him.

"Yeah, c'mon man." I clap his shoulder and proceed to lift his spirits. "There's no shame in trying."

"Okay." He agrees walks toward the Geode. Licking his hand, he slaps it onto the Geode… and nothing happens. "Mmmmm!" He tries to force it. "It's not working! Ugh." He sighs in defeat and let's go of the Geode. "I knew this would happen. Just when I thought I was getting better." He says sadly.

"Don't beat yourself up, Steven."

"Yeah, don't worry about it!"

"We'll find another way!" The gems all try to reassure the kid of his apparent failure but he has none of it.

"Eh. You don't understand. How am I supposed to call myself a Crystal Gem, if I can't even-" His self put-down is interrupted as the Warp Whistle goes off again. With nothing else to do, we all decide to warp back and see what's going on "Dad! Daaad! Are you okay?" Steven cries out at seeing his father slumped against the bed and runs up to him. I reach for my pistols, ready to act in case whoever attacked Greg is still here. "Answer me!"

"Steven!" He jerks awake and looks at his son. "You just missed... the funniest commercial."

"God damnit." I curse under my breath as I let go of my guns.

"What?"

"Haha, it was that one for the dog treats where the dog's dressed up like a doctor. If I ever get heartworms, I'm eating those dog treats." I barely listen to Greg's explanation as I head to the fridge and pull out a soda.

"Dad, you're only supposed to use the Warp Whistle for emergencies. Like if you fell down and broke your butt!" Steven scolds his dad at his blatant use of the Warp Whistle as I take a sip of my drink.

"Yeah, sorry about that." He apologizes to his son.

"*sigh* It's okay."

"Since you're here, mind grabbing me a snack from the Big Donut?" I roll my eyes at Greg's request before I down the last of the drink and toss the can in the trash.

"Yeah, sure thing." Steven concedes to the request and starts walking down the stairs. "I'll be right back guys." He tells us and moves to the door.

"Hang on Steven." I call out and head to him. "I need to get some stuff from my truck."

"Alright."

"We'll be in the temple." Garnet tells us as the three gems open the door to the temple.

"We have to come up with another plan, quick." I hear Pearl tell Garnet. From the urgency in her voice, chances are we need to find a solution to the Geode crack soon or risk a rupture and completely releasing the storm.

"Yo, dude, no worries about earlier. You'll get ahold of your powers before ya know it!" Amethyst yells out to Steven to try to lift his spirits.

"Thanks, Amethyst!" He replies.

"Get me a croissant." She manages to say before the temple doors close.

' _Man this sucks. Everyone else has their own room and I don't. The one my mom showed me was only just a message. Purely designed to show me what she wanted to show me. I've tried to access it before with no luck. Hopefully soon I can get enough funds together to get a house built for my own purposes.'_ I think as we go out the door and head down the steps.

"Ah, I forgot to ask Dad what kind of donuts he wants. Ugh..." He sulks at forgetting that tidbit of info.

"That sucks. I'm gonna head on to… wait, I forgot. I moved everything here. I'm sure my welding equipment is somewhere in the pile."

We both turn back and walk inside to a surprising sight. "Hey, Dad, I-" He stops in an alarmed state, just like me, when we see his father at the fridge, dancing on his "broken" leg, carrying out food.

"Steven! Marcus!" He calls out our names and drops all the food he's carrying at the same time. "Ha, you had me scared there, you two. Didn't see you... standing in the doorway. Your old man's still got it son!" Steven however is having none of it and is staring at him angrily while I have my arms crossed and tapping my foot. "What, this? I guess I couldn't wait for those donuts." He motions to the food on the ground but then notices that that is not what Steven is referring to. It's his 'broken' leg that he's looking at. "Ugh... ouch... ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!" I slap my face at the poor cover-up that Greg is trying to accomplish… right in front of us. He rolls on the ground pretending to be hurt.

"Greg… please man… just, just… stop… please… you're embarrassing yourself." I say through my hand, trying to come up with a good enough sentence to get him to stop.

" Yeah dad, just stop. I get what's going on. Your leg isn't broken at all, is it?" Steven asks his old man.

"It was broken, but you healed it back at the car wash." He answers truthfully.

"You lied to me! Now I can't do it anymore!" Steven cries out sadly at the loss of his powers.

"What?" His father asks confused.

"The Gems needed me to fix the broken rock, but my healing powers aren't working. It-it's because of you, you messed with my head!" He accuses his father in a slightly angry but also fearful manner.

"No! I didn't mean to... I just wanted to live with my son again!" He tries to make the excuse for his son but Steven has none of it.

"I really thought I was getting better, I finally felt like a Crystal Gem. Now, what if I can't do anything?" I can't help but feel bad at the sad state Steven is in.

"Steven, don't beat yourself up! This is my fault!" He tries to reassure his son of his main part in the disappearance of Steven's powers but it does little.

"Yeah! Yeah it is!" He agrees with his dad at whose fault it is and runs outside.

"Damnit. I curse under my breath. _'Classical psychological move. Sometimes, things happen or don't happen based solely on a person's psychological state or whether or not they 'think' it will or will not work. By lying to Steven about his power not working, even though it did work, then when he 'thinks' his powers aren't working, his mind processes it to make it so his powers won't work. Tell a person something enough times… they'll believe it.'_ I think on the crappiness that Greg put his son in. "Greg, that wasn't cool what you did man. You really shouldn't have- What are you doing?" I go to give him a piece of my mind but I see him standing on the warp pad with the warp whistle in one hand and the toolbox in the other.

"Dad, I'm sorry, I... Dad!" Before he could answer me, Steven walks in to see his dad on the warp pad.

"It's time for me to fix the trouble I've caused." He says before he blows into the Warp Whistle, activating the warp pad. Before I can react, Steven jumps past me into the warp pad.

"Guys!" I cry out and try to grab them but I miss. The warp pad sends them off just as I move to grab them. "Crap!" I quickly move onto the warp pad and activate it, sending me to the Geode.

* * *

The warp tunnel disappears around me and I'm met with the still dark storm clouds overhead.

"It's still not working!" I hear Steven call out. Looking to the Geode, I see Steven next to the crack with Greg with him as well.

"Ah, forget it! I've got another idea!" I slide down as Greg says that and pulls out some duct tape. As I walk up to them, he pulls one long strip of tape along the crack and just like that, the storm ends. "There, see, as good as new!" He proclaims happily.

"Seriously?!" I ask incredulously. The both of them turn to me. "That's all that was needed?! Wow, man. I planning to weld that crack shut. Didn't think all it took was just some tape." I say while scratching my head.

"Like I said before, some tape can patch up anything in a pinch." He tosses the tape into the air before catching it again. I smile and pat the crack on the Geode, finding it is stable.

"It sure did. C'mon, lets go home. Despite what you did, Greg, why don't you and your son have a proper day to hang out you know?" I propose.

"Yeah!" They both agree and head to the warp pad with me trailing behind.

* * *

It's later in the day and right now Marcus's mind is reeling from the pristine looking truck in front of him. Like literally it's shining like new and he can't even see the damage from Lapis's assault at all.

"How…" He questions but is hard to find the proper words.

"So, I've replaced the tires..." Pearl begins to list off some of the things she did.

"But I…"

"… Realigned the axles..."

"Wha…"

"... Replaced the spark plugs..."

"How did you…"

"... Sealed the leaks in the intake manifold gaskets, buffed out the scratches, replaced the doors and recalibrated the timing belt. The gears are still sensitive so as long as you don't go shifting in an instant, your transmission should be fine." She finishes the list as all the others stood off to the side watching.

"…"

"Marcus?" Pearl asks her friend at his silent treatment.

"Pearl!" He yells her name and instantly grabs her in a hug, twirling her around in an excited manner. "I can't believe… how did you… I don't even know what to say?!" He says in surprise. After seeing the state of how his truck was in, plus the engine falling out, and the emotions he kind of went through, it's hard for him to process how his truck is in perfectly good condition now.

"There's no need to say anything. It wasn't a problem." She says sweetly. Truthfully, she wanted especially get his truck fixed because of the sensitive information he gave her and wanted to do something nice for him.

"Not a problem?!" He yells out as he grips her shoulders, staring into her eyes. "Pearl! I could kiss you!"

"We-well there's no need for-!"

You know how some people say they could kiss them and don't do it?

Yeah Marcus isn't one of those people.

Pearl's eyes widen from the kiss Marcus plants on her lips, the warm sensation completely foreign to her on that part of her body. Amethyst drops a bag of popcorn she was eating and the pieces in her mouth fall out as well with the jaw dropping event happening in front of her. Steven and Greg are just as shocked as well; even Garnet can't help but let her jaw drop in surprise at scene in front of her.

After a few seconds, Marcus lets her go. He has a smile on his face for a second after he let go but it quickly turns to horror at what he did. He steps back at seeing the wide-eye look and slightly agape mouth adoring Pearls features. He stammers a little, trying to form a proper sentence. "Uhhh… I… uh… I don't… I'm… I don't…" He quickly looks around for something to get him out of the situation he's in. His eyes land on Greg. "Uhhhh, what's that Greg? You need a ride to your van? Suuurrrree!" He fast walks over to the portly human.

"What?! I didn't say- Whoa!"

"No need man! I got you!" Marcus picks up Greg easily and opens the backseat door. He tosses the human in and shuts the door before quickly going to the driver seat and immediately turning the truck on before shifting into drive and peeling out on the sand, leaving the still stunned individuals right where they are. As he drives on the sand, the sea wall and boardwalk starts to come closer and closer. Greg tries to warn the driver but instead ducks into the backseat and prepares for the crash.

Marcus however hits it an angle and jumps up the angled wall, sending him into the air for a second before crashing onto the boardwalk and driving straight to the car wash. He is silent the whole drive there, focused entirely on the driving while Greg hangs on for dear life at his friends insane driving. They soon make it to car wash where Marcus slams on the brakes, stopping his struck with slight tire screeches.

"Woah!" And sending Greg rolling out of the backseat and falling into the passenger seat upside down. Marcus carefully turns off the truck and returns to roughly grabbing the steering wheel.

Silence reigns in for the duo, Marcus trying to come to terms with his action and Greg trying to not throw-up.

"Dude," Marcus glances to the upside down human. "You've got guts kissing Pearl like that."

"Urhhhhh." The hybrid groans at the reminder of the event and slams his head against the steering. Through his mind, things were just getting normal after the events of the last couple weeks.

Now, only one thing leaves his mouth.

"Whhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy?"

He asks no one in particular. Probably fate.

 **Well, considering my last few chapters, I say this was a nice change of pace. Similar to "Beach Party" this one followed the episode quite closely… except the end there. I felt giddy in writing that part and I would be lying if I said I can't wait to hear your guy's response to that. Speaking of potential shipping, when I started this story, I had one person in mind and several others for potential candidates but now as some of them start to flesh out and other options that could appear in the future, I have to ask: Who do you want?**

 **Like seriously I get a bunch of different responses when it comes to the options for a ship for Marcus; Jenny, Pearl, Lapis, are prime candidates at the moment but that's mostly because their already in the story and I have other options in the future. Some of you initially thought Lapis wouldn't work but the way how I presented to her changed some minds. I want to know what you guys think. Which person now or in the future do you guys look more forward to Marcus being with. I still have the original person in mind but to be honest I want to hear from you guys on your opinions. Whether your choices influence my decision or not are another matter entirely but who knows, some of you may convince me.**

 **In any case, have fun reading.**


	20. 19 Space Race

To say things are awkward… again, would be a massive understatement. Pearl and I haven't even acknowledged each other since the 'incident' and I really don't blame her. What I did was just… wow. I mean the beautiful comment sure but… that kiss? Yeah no that was utterly stupid on my part. I do like Pearl, I like how she looks, I like her spirit and I love all the things she's done for me since I've been here. The times she's given me pointers on sword fighting as well as all the times she's patched me up whenever I got hurt. The chances of… something happening between us… I wouldn't be opposed to it. I still can't believe just how stupid and excited I was at the time that I just… Ugh. That was not subtle at all.

Everyone has given us awkward stares and looks here and there, me mostly for obvious reasons, so in an effort to distract myself from the situation, I've been pouring over new devices for me to make. For days I've spent developing new IED's with varying explosive capabilities and ranges, as well as different ways to set them off, whether by remote with my phone, proximity, timed or on impact. I even decided to make mobile bombs using various remote controlled toys. Steven at first was happy to see them, I gave him a couple, but the rest were for me to use. I've set some up to be used on ground based all-terrain toys, some boats, even a few helicopters as well. I made the explosives on them similar to C4 so I made sure to keep the detonating charges locked up along with the replicator. It's a nice thought but one I need to be careful with.

I also decided to work on that rebreater unit I was thinking of making when I went up that water spire. I took the basic sketches for a scuba gear and started fiddling with ideas for how to make it compact and for the device to reuse as much air as possible for when I breathe. I need to make it so that should I be in a situation where I can't breathe, I need to be able to slap it on in an instant to give me enough time to properly breathe in a new area. I'm focusing mostly on the explosives right now so the rebreather is only in its rough draft stage.

In any case, we still have jobs to do so after a week of nothing happening, the gems decided to check up on an area they know of. The warp tunnel around us dissipates and I immediately move forward and check the area around us, making sure we're clear of hostiles. "Clear." I call out as I take in where we are. We now find ourselves on some type of plateau-like building area in the middle of the ocean with an unobstructed view clear into space with several other warp pads around us; most of which are destroyed, as well as a much bigger one in the middle that's broken as well.

"Woah." Steven is in awe at the location we reside in.

Garnet walks over and steps on another warp pad. "Inactive." She calls out. Steven walks over and grunts as he slaps a sticker of that crying breakfast friend show he for some reason likes on the warp pad she called out.

Amethyst jumps onto a different warp pad. "Inactive!" Getting what they're doing, I move to another warp pad as Steven slaps a sticker onto the inactive warp pad.

"Inactive." I call out, prompting Steven to slap a sticker on my pad.

"Inactive." Pearl calls out hers in a disappointing manner. He then runs over and slaps a sticker on the warp pad she's standing on.

"Do we have to check all of them?" Amethyst proceeds to groan out at the apparent unnecessary action we are taking. "They're all still inactive, like always."

"We need to make sure." Garnet says as she walks away to another set of pads.

"Expecting trouble?" I ask her as we walk together.

"Don't you always?" she retorts.

I give her a nod, "Touché."

"I've never seen so many warp pads before!" Steven says out loud and pulls out two stickers. "I hope I have enough of these Crying Breakfast Friends stickers. Where do all these warp pads go, anyway?" He questions and to be honest, I'm curious as well. After checking on the next to warp pad, I make my way over to another.

"Well, Steven, these warp pads were used to travel off-planet." Pearl begins to explain to him about the pads as she sits down. _'Off-planet warp pads? Wow, eat your heart out NASA and everyone who wants to go off-world.'_ "They were our connection to the Gem Homeworld and to Gem-controlled planets all over the universe."

"Wait! To Homeworld! One of these could take us to Homeworld?!" I ask in surprise.

"Ye-yes." Pearl asks hesitantly, still not looking at me after my brash action last time. "T-the middle one. There." She points to the large elevated middle warp pad.

In an excited manner, I sprint over to the pad and jump onto the top of it, not bothering to use the stairs. As I step onto the middle of it, I feel all eyes on me as I concentrate to activate it. Nothing happens. "Damnit." I curse and stomp on the warp pad before letting out a sigh. _'So much for visiting Lapis.'_

"You mean if these were working, we could go anywhere we want in outer space?" Steven gasps with stars in his eyes, indicating he's excited about the possibility of other worldly planet exploration.

"Yeah... we could do that if they weren't all busted." Amethyst quickly crushes his daydreaming.

"It's true. The galaxy warps have all been inactive for thousands of years." Pearl further accentuates the hopeless situation.

"Can't we fix them?" He asks hopefully.

"… No." Garnet in her usual blunt tone says.

"Damn." I mutter to myself and look at the warp pad at my feet. I can't tell how this thing works exactly and as much as I want to gut it open and see what makes it tick, I don't want to permanently destroy a pathway to a location we can't get to by any other means.

"It's fine." She says with a slight chuckle that I call fake. "I'll always have my memories of other worlds. But now I'm here... on Earth... Forever." She finishes saying with an expression and tone of both seriousness and sadness, further proving to me that she is not fine.

"With me!" I smile at the kids attempt to cheer her up.

"Right." She agrees with him with a simple pat to his head. "With you. It really is incredible out there, though. I wish you could see it, Steven." She says in a hopeful tone towards the stars. I can't help but stare into the sky as well, thinking about the possibilities of space travel and planet exploration.

After Pearl finishes her reminiscence, Steven pulls out a Crying waffle sticker and walks to the elevated warp pad I'm standing on. He looks to me for confirmation on the pad. I give a sad nod and he slaps it on.

* * *

Since our trip was somewhat fruitless, we all decided to go and do our own things. The gems went back into the temple while Steven took off to go hang out with his dad. I decided however to go test out some my RC explosives to make sure their working right. The explosives are still on them so I can account for the weight but without the detonating charges, they can't go off. See as with regular C4 explosives, what most people know about explosives, when something goes boom you usually think all you need is enough fire or force to make it ignite. C4 however requires an electric current if you want to make it explode. You can't just shoot it, burn it or hit it and make it explode. No, you need special detonator charges attached to it to make the block explode. That's what I was going for with my IED's, specific ways to blow them up so no one would accidentally set them off. *Cough* Steven *Cough*.

The rest of the day goes by pretty smoothly for me as I first test out my RC air toys. Most of them worked alright but I should increase the power behind the engine of the spinning blades so they could take the weight of the extra explosives as well as any strong winds that could suddenly pop up. Don't want them to do a nose dive away from my target should a gust of wind appear out of nowhere. Now it's late in the day and right now I'm testing my ground ones.

"Alright, good movement. Nice turning speed but how good is sudden incline change?" I ask myself as I use one of the monster trucks. It works well on the rough ground but I need to take into account of possibly jumping over some objects. "Hm?" I question a plank board that is precariously set up like a ramp. "You'll do." I drive the truck up the ramp and it slightly slows down going up the ramp but also spins in the air once it leaves the board. "Hmmmm." I walk over to the RC and pick it up before examining it for damage. I find none so I go back to contemplating. _'Increased engine power, obviously, find a way to dampen the sound, balance out the whole thing to make sure it doesn't spin out like that again in mid-air…'_

"Marcus!" I look to the side at my name calling to a sight that widens my eyes. "Look out!"

"Shit!" I drop down the ground behind the rock and ramp as Steven in a handmade boxcar comes barreling at me.

"No shame! Aah!" I hear him yell before there is a loud crashing sound. I cover my head in preparation for the impact against me but I feel none. Looking up, I find the rock that was used to prop the ramp up took the brunt of the makeshift missile towards me, completely destroying the ramp and the cart is completely shattered into a million pieces.

"What the hell was-? Steven!" I yell as I spot the kid several yards from me lying on the ground. I drop my RC and sprint over to the kid before sliding next to him. "Steven! You okay man?!" I ask frantically.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm good." He assures me that's he's not hurt. I let out a sigh of relief before helping him to sit up. "Darn, we failed." He says sadly while looking at the destroyed cart.

"Failed? Dude, what just happened? What was that?" I ask in a bewildered tone while gesturing to the broken debris.

"A spaceship!"

"…" I raise an eyebrow in question at his answer. "A spaceship?"

* * *

"Did you really think this was gonna work?" Pearl asks the father-son duo while gesturing to the chalkboard of their plans, which to me doesn't look like anything to do with space flight.

"Mnh-mnh-mnh." The two of them hum an 'I don't know' to the gem along with shrugged shoulders. I shake my head at their work on their spaceship.

"Here, look." She proceeds to show them a real spaceship drawing and planning on the chalkboard. "You need smooth, curving surfaces. Otherwise, you're never gonna get enough speed to break Earth's gravitational pull. Probably swept-back wings for supersonic flight, airtight cockpit with ejector seat, and we'll need some serious engines, or maybe rockets would be better." She lists out the things needed to make a spaceship.

"I vote rockets!" Steven immediately votes on what he wants.

"Whoa, whoa. Hold on a sec." Greg immediately gets ups and says in a disbelieving tone. "We're not actually talking about building something like this, right?" He asks. I shrug my shoulders but Pearl seems a little different on the matter.

"What?! This?" She gestures to the chalk drawing and laughs. "Of course not. That would be ridiculous. I mean, yes, theoretically, it's not a stretch. You've got plenty of spare parts here, albeit for incredibly primitive propulsion-based space travel. The idea is ludicrous. It would never work, althoooough several humans, a monkey, and a dog did make it into space. I don't know why I've never even thought of it before. This could actually work!" She goes from disbelieving the whole idea to finish saying it with much enthusiasm.

"Uh..." Both father and son say in unison, unsure on how to answer. They look to me for clarification but shrug no.

"Hey don't look at me."

"I hear what you're saying, and I agree-" She ignores the unsure feeling in the air and goes back to the issue at hand. "It would be incredibly dangerous; a fool's errand." She goes on and picks stuffing out of a chair. "This chair is disgusting. But aren't the true fools the ones who don't seize an opportunity, despite all the inherent risks? And I'd be able to show Steven the wonders of the cosmos! And maybe just for a second, from a distance, I could see what's been going on without me." Steven pokes out from behind his chair with stars in his eyes, obviously very supportive of the idea of space travel, and breaks through Pearls skepticism. "All right! let's do it!" She agrees very much.

"UUU, space travel! G-o-o-o-o-o!" Steven proclaims loudly. He jumps out of his chair and proceeds to pull his dad into the barn to gather supplies.

Pearl picks up a clipboard and proceeds to write things down on it. "Anything I can do?" I ask her.

"Oh! Uhh…" She stammers a bit with a blush adorning her features. "Go into the barn and start taking stuff out. I-I need to take into account of what we have." She quickly orders me.

"No problem." I agree and walk into the barn to help the others in gathering supplies. At least she's trying to speak to me but still uncomfortable. I don't want to make things awkward around us and if I could go back and take back what I did, I would. That was a risky move I did and I deserve the consequences. I feel her eyes on my back as I walk to the back of the barn.

Greg and Steven already begin moving parts out of the tool shed as well as me. Pearl soon after starts to use drills, screw-drivers, and blowtorches various things together in order to start building a spaceship. I stay out of her way so she can focus on the build as I continue to move things around; mostly stuff I can tell that would be well needed in making the ship. She also tests out an engine at point, which is actually acting like a real jet engine, at least until it flies out of its restraints and blows up in the air. After that she starts mixing various chemicals together to get a proper accelerant fuel source to use for the jet because as we know, regular gasoline isn't gonna cut it.

Later, much of the day is past and the sun is starting to set. To properly test out the engine she is planning to use, Steven was tasked with flying in a small seated glider.

"Wah-o-o-o-o-o-o-oo!" I faintly hear Steven cry out in joy as he continues to fly around.

"Ground control to mach 2. Come in, mach 2. How you doing, buddy?" Greg uses a radio to contact his son while Pearl jots down some notes on her clipboard and I keep an eye on our pilot using some binoculars.

"Aah! aah-aah-aah-aah! Wow!" Steven's reply is insistent mutterings of joy.

"You think we're taking this a little far?" Greg asks.

"We're not even close to being done." Pearl informs him and jots some things down.

"We're not?"

"It's space Greg." I say to him, not taking my eyes off the binoculars but I know he's looking at me. "We don't go far enough, we don't go at all."

"Okay, Steven. Go ahead and bring her down." Pearl calls to him using her headset.

Our pilot brings the glider in low to the ground before managing to land the thing just as the engine backfires, the wings collapse, and the seat ejects Steven a couple feet forward. "Ugh! Whoo!" He happily yells out with his arms raised. _'Not much of an ejection seat.'_

"Was it supposed to fall apart like that?" Greg asks Pearl as I put away the binoculars.

"Don't worry. This was just to test my engine concept. I'll work out the kinks in the next one." She tries to assure him everything is good.

"Hang on. Hang on. Next one?!" But she fails.

"Is there a shop in town that carries F-1 single-nozzle liquid-fueled rockets?" She asks him nonchalantly.

"You really are serious!" Greg acts in surprise.

"Of course! Now, any ideas where?" She asks him with a smile. The man just gives her an open mouthed stare with a slow head shake meaning no. She grimaces at the lack of knowledge and turns to the only person she knows who could know.

"Um, Marcus?" I look over to my name being called. Pearl still hasn't gotten over me and I don't blame her. "D-do you know where we-we could get those types of rockets?" she stammers to ask me while also not looking directly at me.

"Hmmm." I place a hand to my chin and think of where we could get those types of rockets. "Those types of rockets are typically used by NASA for shuttle launches and such, way far away from us and in no way we could finish it within a week if you expect me to go, get one and come back." I inform her, much to her dismay. "If you want, I'm sure I could probably steal some parts from a military base somewhere and make our own make-shift engine."

"No!" Greg shuts down that idea.

"Great!" She ignores him. "We're also going to need a space suit for Steven so he doesn't freeze or explode." She lists off the other item we need. Steven imitates an explosion despite how bad that would be.

"Whoa. You are not taking him to space." Greg decides to put his foot down on the issue.

"Yes, I am." She says still with the smile on her face, not really taking into account of just what Greg requested.

"No! I'm not allowing it!" He stays firm on his choice.

"But why? This is why we founded Universe & Universe."

"That's what the U's stand for?" I ask them out of the blue. I never did get an answer as to what the U's stood for.

"Steven, you're grounded."

"What?!" He asks in surprise.

"C'mon man. Doesn't that seem a little-"

"No, no. I mean you're grounded. You don't get to leave Earth." Greg clarifies in the middle of my input.

"Oh, well that makes sense."

"Oh." Steven and I get what he means. "What?!" The kid asks in surprise again.

"As C.E.O. and supreme space commander, I hereby ground this astronaut and cancel this mission." The 'CEO' states firmly.

"Aw, man! Stupid company by-laws." Steven pouts.

"Hey! Who made you C.E.O.?!" Pearl demands of him.

"He did." Greg motions with a tilted head towards Steven. He looks nervously at Pearl for his distribution of power towards his father.

"Fine. If neither of you will help, I'll just do it by myself-! Not like it'll be much different." She mutters as she angrily pushes them away and stalks off into the barn.

"Pearl!" Steve calls out to her but she slams the barn doors shut.

"I'm sorry, bud. Sometimes you just got to know when to bail." Greg apologizes to his son while I sigh and shake my head.

"Let me see if I can talk to her." I tell them and walk to the barn doors.

"Uhh, Marcus, are you sure? I mean the two of you haven't really been… you know?" Greg tells me uneasily while he nervously scratches his head.

I tilt my head down and let out a heavy sigh at the tenseness between Pearl and I. "Yeah, I know. But the fact of the matter is that we need to get past this and this should be a good opportunity to do so." I tell them. This whole situation between Pearl and I sucks but if we are going to continue working together, we need to get past this.

"Good luck." I hear Steven tell me as I grab the barn doors.

"Thanks." I reply and step inside, closing the doors behind me. I immediately spot Pearl rummaging through some stuff nearby. "Hey Pearl, listen I hope you understand why Greg is-"

"Please, don't speak to me." She bluntly interrupts me, much to my surprise.

"Wha-? Listen! I'm sorry for what I did to you and I'm sorry but-" She stands up and turns to me.

"I don't know what… "Signals" I've given you in our time working together but if you think I'm going to reciprocate any feelings you may have for me to you… Your sadly mistaken." She roughly tells me with a stern look.

"Feelings?! Look I'm sorry for what I did! That was a stupid move on my part but-"

"Obviously." She turns away with a scoff.

My eyes widen at her attitude. "What the hell is your problem?!" I stalk up to her and grab her arm. "What did I do to get you so-?" She shakes my arm off and roughly turns back to me.

"I don't want anything to do with you that way! Not after-" She freezes before she can finish what she's saying.

"Not after… what?" I question. She turns away from me and walks away but I grab her shoulder to stop her. "Pearl, what-"

She shakes my hand off her shoulder and gives me a sideways glance, "I'm not falling… in love… with a killer like you."

I tense up at her accusation. I never told her about what I did when I was helping humans. The only killing she knows about is- "Is this about those gem monsters?"

She turns away from me and clenches her fists.

"I thought we were past this?" I ask her sternly. "Why bring this up no-"

"You don't understand, do you?" She asks me.

"What?" I ask.

"Those… monsters… aren't monsters. Their gems."

"Uh, yeah their gems. I see the things they drop when we defeat them."

"You ignorant stupid-"

"Hey!" I yell and turn her around. "What the hell are you-?" I stop as I notice the tears brimming on her eyes. "Pearl?" She pushes me away.

"Those monsters… were… gems… Us." She gets out.

"Wait what?" I question what she means.

"Don't you get it?!" She yells at me. "Those monsters aren't just monsters like in your games, mythology or animals! Their corrupted gems!"

I take a moment to process her words. _'Wait, corrupted? Then that means that they weren't originally…'_ "Wha-what do you mean?" I ask her, almost afraid of her answer.

"Those gems, the ones that we've been fighting, the two dozen gems you destroyed… they were formally gems like me, Garnet, Amethyst… even you." She answers me, telling me what I fear. Taking lives is something I'm no stranger to… but I've never killed a sentient gem before.

"Y-you mean… I've…" I stammer a little.

"Yes… You've killed gem people." She bluntly tells me, no longer dancing around the issue. I stand there stunned at the new info she just gave me.

' _All those monsters I've fought… used to be… oh god! The Obsidian gem…'_ I remember the gem monster and its lackeys that night when Pearl rematerialized. The gem it had looked like an Obsidian gem but not perfect resemblance. Now it makes sense.

She walks past me to the pile of junk. "Nothing will happen between us." Is the last thing she says before she goes back to working on the ship.

I don't know how long it was I was standing there but eventually I slump out of the barn, intent to be alone with my thoughts.

* * *

Nighttime has already befallen upon the residents of the barn, some sleep peacefully, others… not so much. Greg is sleeping in his truck and mutters in his sleep. Steven however sleeps on the ground in his caterpillar-like sleeping bag, until a finger pokes him awake.

"Wha?" He asks while groggily waking up.

"Shh!" Pearl quickly shushes the kid before he can make too much noise. "Want to see something really cool?" She asks him excitedly. Steven immediately agrees at the idea of seeing something cool. The two of them silently stalk their way to the front entrance of the, passing Greg's van with the man inside as he mutters in his sleep some more.

"No. Don't give him the banana. That's what he wants."

The two of them make it to the front of the barn doors and Pearl grasps the handles to the doors. "Presenting the brand-new ballistic-flight-capable Universe Mach 3!" Pearl excitedly tells the kid as she opens the doors with a flourish.

Steven gasps loudly at the new spaceship before him. "Spaceship!" He yells excitedly and runs around the machine laughing happily.

"Wait, Steven. Keep your voice down." Pearl tries to calm down the excited kid to keep him from waking the others up.

"Whoa!" He either ignores her or didn't listen because he continues to be excitedly loud before spotting something on the side of the ship. "It's even got the logo from the van!" He points out.

"And if your dad asks, we'll say we borrowed it."

Steven agrees with the idea before jumping into the spaceship. "Whoa. Look at all the buttons! I must press them all." He says.

"If you want, Steven, we could take her out for an engine check." She proposes to him and with a quick move, she uses her gem to change her clothes into that of a spacesuit. "It'll be quick." The kid nods excitedly at the idea of going into the air. "Great!" she happily says and goes up the ladder. She places herself into the only seat in the cockpit before picking Steven up and placing him in her lap. "Okay, now let me just check to see if all systems are green…" She trails off as she presses some buttons. Steven gets off her lap and peaks over the side of the ship.

"What are you guys doing?"

"Ahh-Mmmmm!" Steven begins to scream at the head that suddenly popped over the side but Marcus covers his mouth before he can wake up the sleeping father. The muffled screaming lessens more and more until he finally calms down after knowing who is in front of him. "Hey."

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?!" Pearl asks him crossly.

"Oh I was just coming by, sulking and thinking about my life, planning to grab my explosives and head home, when I spot a peculiar sight: Two people stalking around the barn like they're trying to do something… quiet." Marcus says as he fully climbs up and sits in the cockpit with a backpack on.

"So?" she asks him as Steven takes his place on Pearl's lap again.

"And it looks like you guys are doing something that you were expressly told not to do."

"Maybe…" She crosses her arms in a questioning manner to the guy. "What are you going to do about it?" she asks as Steven looks between the two of them.

"I'm staying right here until you guys leave." Marcus gets himself comfy and sits firmly in the cockpit.

The two o them stare at each other, waiting for one or the other to break. Steven remains impassive and just switches from staring between the both of them.

"…"

"…"

"… Okay!" Pearl happily says and slams her fist on a button.

"What?!" Marcus says in surprise as the entire machine starts to rumble and move forward.

"Pea-a-a-a-rl!" Greg yells loudly, immediately blaming the gem for the missing tires and missing piece of the side of his van where the logo was. He jumps out of the van and moves to the front of the barn, immediately spotting the giant ship pulling forward as he spots his son in the ship. "Steven, what are you doing?!" He yells to his son but is too late. The spaceship's engine rev loudly before a loud boom is heard and the spaceship lifts off into the air, knocking Greg to the ground from the force of the ships engines.

"Wow!" Steven voices his awe at seeing everything from so high from above and laughs a little. "Marcus look! You can see the temple!" He points to the ground.

"No no! I'm good." He replies while holding very tightly to whatever's around him. "Pearl I'd like to ask why you didn't add more than one chair?"

"Well it's not like I was expecting anyone else to rudely interrupt our departure!" She replies in an annoyed tone.

"… And that's my fault because?" He asks her.

She looks at him crossly before going to retort, "Hey, can you hear me?!" However before they could continue arguing, the walkie-talkie goes off, Greg's voice on the other end. "Where do you two think you're going?!"

"Hey Greg!" Marcus calls out lazily.

"Marcus?! What are you guys doing?!"

"Hey, Dad, guess where I am." Steven lightheartedly asks his dad, despite how freaked out the father actually is on the ground.

"I know where you are! It's where you're going that concerns me!" He screams through the electronic device.

"Don't worry, Dad. This is just a quick test flight." Steven casually tells his dad.

"This will be perfectly fine. Just a pop over to the nearest star system-"

"Excuse me?!" Marcus yells out in surprise at the idea of going to a new star system.

"I'll give him back in 50 years." She continues, not acknowledging what Marcus said.

"50 Years?" Steven asks Pearl, making sure he heard right while Marcus remains stunned at the info.

"What?! I'll be dead in 50 years!" Greg yells. "Pearl, you bring him back right now, or I'll-" Pearl simply turns off her end of the transmission.

"Pearl, I'm not supposed to go."

"Yeah, I'm with him on this one." Marcus agrees with Steven. Unfortunately, she ignores them and remains rooted to the trip.

"Pearl!" Steven tries to get her attention again.

"Oh, this is so exciting! Steven, you're gonna love it." She says and begins to play on piano keyboard she installed as a makeshift console. The notes make the usual noise but this time they activate the afterburners on the ship to gain speed. "Hang on tight!" She warns them as the ship gains more speed.

"Mm!" Steven grunt as he's pressed harder into Pearl.

"Oh man!" Marcus grunts as well as he slides back a little, placing on the side outside of the chair. The ships gains even more speed as it continues to climb the heavens. Soon they pierce through the clouds and the dark blue of the night turns to black with bright spots, revealing the vastness of space.

A piece of the spaceship tears off the ship itself, flying past and nearly sheering off the glass cockpit. "What was that?" Steven asks her, not really sure what that thing was but Marcus knows, that's why he's digging deep grooves into the chairs arms with his fingers.

"Peeeeaaaarrrrl…" He says the pilots name warily. "Did you prep this ship for atmospheric re-entry?" Something else tears off. "Did you even prep it to leave the planet in the first place?!"

Alarms begin blaring throughout the cockpit. "Pearl!" Steven calls out her name in uneasiness.

"We can make it. We're almost there." She responds in a dreamy voice, the prospect of going to space rewriting any form of worry she might have at the ship getting destroyed.

Even more of the spaceship begins to fall apart, adding even more worry to the human-gem duo in the death machine. "Pearl!" Steven tries to get her attention again.

"I'm gonna show it to you." She continues to be oblivious to the situation at hand.

"Steven…" Marcus gets the kids attention. "She isn't listening. We need another way to get her attention." He tells him.

"Uh... Uh..." Steven quickly looks around the cockpit for anything that might help as the blaring alarm continues. He finds a lever and grabs it.

"Wait, Steven! What are you going to-?" Before Marcus can finish, the kid pulls it, blasting the window covering the occupants of the ship off, exposing them to the air and sending them flying out. "Oh god!" Marcus yells as he's almost sucked out.

"Marcus!" Steven cries out his friends name as he's almost torn away from them but the guy grabs the headrest of the chair.

"Steven! What are you doing?!" Pearl asks him in surprise, finally breaking out of her dreamy-like state.

"We need to go, Pearl! We're not gonna make it!" He pleads to her as more of the ship continues to tear off.

"But we're almost there!" She tries to argue to keep on going while staring into space.

"C'mon Pearl!" Marcus yells to her through the wind blowing hard against him. "It's hopeless! Not with the state the ship is in now!"

"But-"

"Pearl!" Steven pulls her view back down to him, making sure she hears what he's going to say. "I know you miss space, and I know you worked hard, but sometimes... you just got to know when to bail." He quotes his father, knowing full well that the plan is not going to work anymore.

She looks at space for a second before closing her eyes and pulls a lever on the side of the chair they're all either sitting in or grabbing onto, ejecting them out of the spaceship just as it explodes.

* * *

"Nooooooo!" Greg cries out as he watches the ship containing his son explode. He hastily scans the sky with his binoculars. "Please, please, please, please, please." He begs, hoping to find his son. He finally spots two sets of parachutes high in the sky, one of them he sees is connected to a chair with Pearl and Steven coming back down to Earth. "Ahhhh. Ohhhhh. Ohh, this kid's killing me." He gasps out breathlessly, happy to see his son alive and well but tired at the stress. "Ughhhh!" He groans out and lies down on the ground, very tired from the emotional turmoil he went through.

* * *

"I'm so sorry. I almost got us killed." Pearl tells her passenger with tears threatening to break through her eyes.

"I'm used to it." He nonchalantly replies.

"That's not something to be used to Steven!" The two of them look over to see Marcus floating down a few yards away from them on his own parachute. "Especially your age." He adds.

"Oh Marcus! I'm so sorry about before! I didn't mean to say those things about you! I just-" She tries to apologize to him, very sorry about her actions to the hybrid while her views at the time were blinded at the chance to go to space, but he holds a hand up, stopping her.

"We'll talk about it later!... Preferably not almost half a mile above ground." He says as he looks down.

"That's a good idea." Steven agrees with the paratrooper and makes sure he's firmly seated with Pearl. She settles into the seat as well, making sure her passenger doesn't fall out as well as her.

After a few moments of silence, Marcus breaks it. "Pearl, I know you were so fixated on going to space but you had to have realized the fragility of the ship as well as taken into account of atmospheric re-entry, right?"

"The ship was solid enough built! I guess I was just so excited to go to space that I relied more on luck at that point. I'm sorry." She explains.

"Ehh some people are just that driven like that. Next time we can- Whoa!" Marcus I rudely interrupted as a large gust of wind catches his parachute and sends him flying back and away from the others.

"Marcus!" The others call out to him as the wind sends him flying up and away from them.

"It's fine! I'll just be… a little late for dinner!" Marcus yells loudly to them as he's carried away. "See you guys at home!" He finishes yelling as he's pushed out of speaking distance.

"Bye!" Steven bids his friend goodbye as he's carried far out of Beach City. "He'll be fine."

"He usually isn't." Pearl comments on their friends wellness, especially throughout the time they've known him.

"But he always gets better."

"…True." Pearl concedes and lets them both fall to ground gracefully in silence.

For a few minutes, they fall silently until Steven speaks up. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you go to space, Pearl. We'll get there someday. I promise." He sincerely says to her.

"You know, I think I'd rather be here on Earth." She says to him as they look at the planet they slowly float down to.

"With me!" Steven happily adds with a smile.

"Yeah. With you." She says with a smile and hugs the kid closely to her.

Some minutes pass in silence again, nothing else striking up their interest.

"Why didn't we get blown off with Marcus?" Steven asks the older gem.

"I imagine we're heavier than he is. Our combined weight, plus the chair, we can't be as easily thrown off course like him." She explains to her curious companion.

"Oh… I wonder how's he doing?" He asks.

"I'm sure he's fine. He's survived a lot worse." She points out.

"Yeah, he has. He did fall all the way down from the top of Lapis's tower." Steven remembers when Marcus pushed him to Connie and Lion, making sure he was safe but putting his own self ins more danger.

"Yeah, I guess he did." She says with a smile, sure of herself that he's alright.

* * *

"This sucks!" I comment loudly. The wind knocked me I don't know how far away from Beach City and now I'm tangled up in a bunch of trees. "I can take on a few dozen feet tall monsters, faster than the eye could blink opponents, armored to hell and back enemies… but I can't overcome Mother Nature..." I contemplate things for a few seconds as I dangle high above the ground. "… Yep, that's about right." I grumble to myself. After a minute of hanging around, making it obvious that no one is coming to help, "Whelp, I'm bored." I voice my mood on the situation and summon my swords in both hands. Crossing them in a scissor like formation, I cut some of the cords holding me up. "Yes!" I look down. "No."

*Thud*

"Ow." I say out loud as I lay on the ground. "I did not think this through." I say to myself. Soon after, I pull off the straps I have on me before dropping them to the ground and taking out my phone. "Now where am I?" I pull up the map function and triangulate my position. A couple minutes, I find that I'm a few yards away from the nearest road but I'm almost two mile out from home. "Oh god. That's how far I went?" Pointing myself towards the road, I begin my trek towards it. After a few minutes of walking and trudging through trees and bushes, I find myself on a paved roadway. The entire road is very quiet without a single car in sight. "Crap." I look down at the map again and find where I need to go.

"Well, no sense idling."I say and turn left before I start my walk back to town in the dead of night.

 **Well, I'll say that was interesting. I hope I did alright with this chapter for you guys. I wasn't too keen on the confrontations there but I needed to kind of get this chapter out soon for you guys to let you know that for the next few days I'll be taking tests and that I'll also be playing Mafia 3 a lot. So expect a slight delay for my next chapter. Hopefully this story is going to take a turn that you guys support or at least are alright with. I also kind of wish that some of you who are my guests would be able to make accounts here in fanfiction so I could properly respond to your reviews. For example, you coldblue. Never had I have anyone review my story with as many words as you have coldblue. I may not have mentioned you recently but I appreciate your questions and what you think on the matter of my work. I appreciate everyone's words when directed towards this story, both the guests and all of you with accounts.**

 **I hope I continue to impress you guys with my work from here on out.**

 **Well, that's all I wanted to say really. With that I'll-**

* * *

I continue walking down the road for half an hour, the only thing making a sound is the crunch of my feet on the pavement and the chirping of crickets.

*Scrrreeeeeech*

And the sound of tires screeching along the rode.

"The hell-?" I question at the loud noise. To my right a black van stopped right in next to me. Before I can react, two guys jump out of the side door and grab both my arms. "Hey!" I yell as they grab me. Not caring who they are, I head butt the one to my left, making him let go. With my free hand, I punch the one on the right in the face. He grunts as he lets go and a third guy jumps out. He goes to punch me but I redirect his attack and kick him in the stomach. One of them wraps his arms around me from behind and another comes at me from the front. I jump up and kick him against the van before flinging my head back and smacking my holder in the face. He lets go and bring my right fist back and punch him straight in the face. He goes down easy and I go to deliver another to knock him out.

*Zzzztt-zzzt-zzt-zzt*

"Arrrrgghh!" I yell loudly in pain as I feel bolts of electricity flow through me in my neck. My entire body goes weak as I fall to the ground unconscious.

* * *

"Argh! Son of a bitch!" One of the guys who got head butted groans out. "Little mother-!" He goes to kick the down kid but one of his associates stops him.

"Hey! Hold it! The boss wanted him in one piece. That means no bruises." He sternly tells him before putting away his taser and looking to the other guys who got punched. "Type him up then get him inside." The man nods before pulling out some zip ties and restraining the kids hands and feet. "C'mon lets go." He pushes the head butt guy into the van as their target is loaded in. He goes around the van and gets into the passenger seat.

"It's him?" The driver asks. The passenger pulls out a picture of a face. Looking into the rear view mirror, he sees the face is an exact match to the photo he's got. To make doubly sure, he pulls out another photo of a Jade gem.

"Show me his shoulder." He orders the guys in the back. They pull the guys jacket off slightly before lifting a sleeve and showing what they needed to see. The green gem is there clear as day and a match to the photo. He nods, signaling the guys to let him go. "It's him. Let's go." The driver nods before shifting gears and driving off. The passenger pulls out a disposable phone and types in a number. The phone rings a few times before someone picks up.

"Do you have him?" A gruff voice answers.

"Yes sir. Both photos are a match. We'll bring him to the safe house and then prep him to bring to you."

"Good." The voice on the other end says. "This has been a long time coming. Make sure he gets here in one piece. I want to talk to him personally."

"Yes sir. We'll get him there as soon as we can."

"Very well." The voice sighs heavily. "I want that bastard to tell me to my face what the hell happened to my brother. Get it done."

"You got it." Both guys take the phone away from their ears and click the phone off, or slam it down onto the receiver.

…

… **Huh, guess I wasn't finished. Sorry to leave you hanging like that. Who is this mystery organization that wants Marcus, huh?**

 **I know that… but you don't. Sorry again for the future delay but Mafia is pretty damn fun.**

 **Some of you also asked for when or if Marcus would be dealing with a human problem as well as the gem problems. Well, looks like you guys got the premise for something to come. I hope I do good.**

 **With that, have fun reading, and I'll also leave you with one final thing:**

 **Prepare to meet…** **The Iron Kings**


	21. 20 Kidnapped

"Where is he?"

"We don't know, Pearl. Calm down." Garnet tries to reason to her while sitting on the couch but fails.

"But it's been three days! He couldn't have flown off that far to be gone this long." Pearl voices her concern at the still missing teen while standing next to the window, waiting for the person in question to show up.

It's been three days since Pearl and Stevens's impromptu space voyage that Marcus hitched a ride with them. After he was blown off course and sent out of viewing range of anyone, Steven and Pearl went ahead and left towards home so they could get some rest and reassure Greg of their near explosive encounter with the ship. Needless to say he was very angry at their actions but was also very happy to see his son safe and sound. The next day they were expecting Marcus to walk in he and Pearl could finally clear the air around them, but that wasn't the case. The second day, worry started to be on everyone's mind but soon chalked it up to the fact that he must have been pushed far off and of course had to walk the whole way home. The third day though, that's when worry really started to set in for some.

"You don't think he left us, did he?" she asks them. Thoughts start to go through her mind at her actions against the teen, some she was not proud of and wasn't in the right mind set to properly talk to him. Now she's worried that maybe her actions made him want to leave.

"Nah, I doubt that." Amethyst pipes up from her sitting on the kitchen counter.

"What makes you think that?" Steven asks from his bed.

"Well, for one his stuffs still here." She waves to the pile of weapon cases near the warp pad. "His rides are here and he doesn't seem like the type to just up and leave like that."

"Maybe…" Pearl thinks. He's been working too hard since he came around to just up and leave. He's had plenty of reasons to leave, both because of physical and emotional pains, but that doesn't explain his disappearance now. "But he's still-"

"Pearl." She looks to Garnet. "Give him time. He's always been the resourceful type." Garnet says with a smile. She then crosses her arms behind her head and crosses her legs.

"Yeah, relax P." Amethyst adds and lays back on the counter with her legs hanging off. "I'm sure he'll come back before you know it."

Pearl looks at all her friends as they all relax, even Steven has gone back to playing one of his games. She lets out a sigh before looking back out the window. _'Where are you?'_

* * *

"Ughhhhhh…" I groan as my sense start to come back. I feel incredibly tired and weary but my senses are starting to come around. I feel my movements are somewhat restricted but only to my hands. The room I'm in is a somewhat small stone-walled room with the only thing in it is a rectangular green wooden table, a steel door with a small hole covered by bars, a single hanging light bulb above me, and me handcuffed behind my back to a simple folding chair. To my left, and to my surprise, an IV is next to me feeding into a vein in my arm. "The hell?" I question at my predicament. _'What the hell is going on? Last thing I remember was… Oh god. Who are-'_

*Creak*

I fall limp and pretend to be asleep.

"Ahh good. You haven't woken up yet."A guy says as he walks in and closes the door behind him. "I'm… fifteen minutes late but looks like that didn't matter." I hear his footsteps walk closer to me before I feel a slight tug on the IV. "Chances are your just barely hearing me but you most likely won't remember this."

*TInk*Tink*

I hear very thin metallic pats long metal. "Now let me just give you your daily dose and you can go back to dream land."

Not wanting to go back to dream land, I shoot my eyes open and kick the guys leg out from behind his knee, causing him to fall to it. "Argh! What-?! Ugh!" Not giving him a chance to cry out, I bring both my legs up and close them over his neck in a scissor-like fashion. He drops the syringe he was holding and tries to pry my legs off him but I close them harder, cutting off his air supply and pulling me off the chair. I grunt as I keep my legs on him as I struggle with the handcuffs on me. The guy kicks and moves all over, trying desperately to pry me off but wrapping my feet around each other just closes my legs on him harder. I feel his fingernails trying to tear through my pants but he fails as his movements get less and less forceful. His struggles get weaker until I finally feel him fall limp. To make sure he's not playing dead, I jerk my legs roughly to make him fight back.

He doesn't. With him unconscious, I let him go and take stock of him. He doesn't seem like no one important but he's got a lab coat, glasses and I take note of the syringe he had with him. I also notice the IV pulled out of me in the struggle so I tiny rivulet of blood is going down my arm. "Shit." I curse quietly and pull my arms out from under legs to the front. "C'mon. C'mon. C'mon." I say as I rummage through the guys pockets for a key to the cuffs. After a few moments of looking, I find nothing. "Fuck!" I yell quietly and sit down roughly. Looking at the situation I am in, I let out a deep sigh and rub my face. Now that I think about it, my entire body feels a little stiff and my arms are sore as hell. _'Where the hell am I?'_ I question in my head. _'The guy also said daily… how long have I been here?'_ I take a few moments to compose myself at the idea of just what happened after I got knocked unconscious. "I need to get out of here." I state and look around for anything I can use. My eyes land on the syringe and I smile. "Perfect." I grab it and look at the item. "Well, not perfect but you'll do." I place back down on the ground before stepping on it hard.

The syringe easily breaks and to my joy, the needle breaks off. Using the piece, I take it in my hands and proceed to try to pick the cuffs free. After a couple of failed attempts, one of them is open. "Yes!" I quietly yell and get to work on the other one. With my new free hand, picking the last cuff of me is child's play. "Great." I stand and rub my wrists. "Now I just need-"

"Hey Joe. What's taking so-" Someone else walks in but I quietly cut him off by placing one hand on his mouth and pulling him in with the other, and slamming him against the stone wall next to the door. "Mm!" The guy grunts after the first hit but I slam his head more firmly against the wall, knocking him unconscious.

I let him fall to the ground limply before I quickly peek out into the hallway to make sure no one else saw. Satisfied, I move back in and start searching the new guys person. The guy is wearing a jacket that looks very famili- "Hey!" I quietly yelp as I notice it's my jacket. "You son of-" I don't even bother to finish my sentence as I take my jacket off the douche. Once it's fully off and on me, I smile. "There you are." I look down at the guy… and kick him right in the jewels. "Dick… although yours my hurt in the morning." I give a cheeky grin as the guy continues to remain unconscious. I look down inside my jacket to find the holsters are still there but my guns are missing. "Damn." I curse and take a moment to compose myself. I make one of my swords appear and use it to cut off some straps off the lab guys coat and use them to make a makeshift bandage for the hole. After a few moments, I start searching. I find some miscellaneous things, like loose change and a wallet with three hundred dollars in it, _'Thank you.'_ But as I check his waist, I find a holster with a pistol in it. Taking out the holster and strapping it to me, as well as fishing out a couple magazines from him, I take out the pistol, making sure it's fully loaded and the safeties off, and examine the piece. It's an FN Five-seveN with a 20-round magazine and a laser attachment to the underbarrel. This gun uses a unique cartridge called 5.7 by 28mm, most notably used by Five-seven series weapons and P90's. "What the hell are you doing with this?" I ask the unconscious guy. Obviously he doesn't respond but I pay him no mind as I drag him and his friend to the far end of the room and handcuff them to each other. With my enemies alive but unconscious, I move over to the door and prepare to make my escape. Locking the door behind me, I make my way down the hall quietly with my new pistol leveled in front of me.

' _I have to be careful. If I or anyone else discharge our weapons without a silencer, these narrow halls will carry the sounds far off into the building, alerting everyone. Until I get some info as to where I am and who I am dealing with, I should resort to non-lethal takedowns until I know for sure.'_ I quietly continue my way down the halls, making my footsteps as quiet as possible and steadying my breath so I can listen for any footsteps around me.

Minutes pass to close to an hour as I continue to make my way around this complex. The halls all look vaguely the same so it's a bit difficult to accurately gauge where I am going. I encounter some people here and there but I manage to hide in side rooms to avoid being spotted. As much as I want to knock guys out so I don't have to deal with them later on, I can't have the higher-ups of this place or whatever get wise to the fact that their men suddenly start disappearing. Most of the guys don't wear a collective uniform, they wear casual clothes that an average person would wear. However the weapons they carry around definitely vary, from some carrying only pistols like my Beretta's, to carrying around AK's and Carbines with some powerful attachments to them. I have no idea who these guys are. They seem armed up like a militia group, PMC's (Private Military Contractors), or anything involving a military group in general, but the way how they carry themselves, and the lack of discipline they have, kinda throws those options out of the window.

"Who are these guys?" I quietly mutter to myself as I look to the back of some guys walking away. I continue down the direction they came from and go around a corner. "Shit!" I quietly yell and roll forward, just as a camera oscillates to my direction. I look up while directly under the camera to still see it moving to my previous direction. I quickly look down the hallway to see how far it is to either another door or a hallway turn. As the camera stops to aim down the hallway, I ready myself to run. "Alright, let's go." The camera starts to turn and as soon as I know its field of view is no longer pointed down the hallway, I take off. I try to limit my footsteps sounds as much as I can but my main concern is getting out of the potential view of that damn camera, and hopefully there is no other camera down the hall I turn to. I slow down and quiet my footsteps considerably as I come to the corner and easily slide to the side and out of the previous hallway. After making sure no one else is in the hallway with me, I let out a breath of air I was holding. "Phew. Man that was close." Something that was most interesting to me was the fact that my shadow speed ability didn't kick in. _'Then again, the only times I've ever actually used it was during times of when I was fighting for a situation called on me to help out my friends in any way. I'm alone and the camera wasn't necessarily a danger, just a small hindrance to me and not life-threatening.'_ My head perks up as I hear mutterings and footsteps behind me. _'Fuck! The guys from before!'_ Looking down the hall, I spot a steel door a few feet from me. With quiet smoothness, I move to the door, open it, and silently close it as the talking gets louder. I crouch against the wall in the dark room and hold my breath.

A few moments pass as the guys walk past the door and I barely hear them through the door. When they fully go past, I breathe out and search for a light switch. "C'mon, c'mon. Where are you? Ah! There you are." I say in triumph as I flick the light on. "Alright, now where should… I…" My thoughts trail off as I turn around and look on in amazement at the room I am in. For one thing, all the other doors, besides my cell, were wood; this one is steel and has multiple locks on it from the inside… and I know why.

I just walked into an armory.

The place is relatively small, like the average size you'd see in a video games armory, but it is packed on all sides of the walls and tables with a plethora of weapons and even in a corner, is a steel fence cage with more weapons in it. "Holy shit." I say in awe as I examine the weapons around me.

One of the walls is lined entirely with pistols, revolvers and one-handed weapons. I'm seeing multiple Beretta's of different make and models, some M1911's, scorpion submachine guns, Glocks from 17's to 20's, a Heckler & Koch Mark 23 Mod 0 pistol, MP9's, Mac 11's, Desert Eagle .50's, Colt Python revolvers and even an Anaconda, some small round snub pistols of the .38 caliber, .44 caliber magnums, Smith & Wesson revolvers, MP5K's, H&K MP7A1, Mini Uzi's and even a sawed off double barrel like mine.

That's just one section, another two is the assault, shotgun or rifle variety of weapons. AK47's, AK74u submachine gun, M4A1's, M16's, Galil assault rifles, IMI Tavor MTAR-21, SCAR variety, UMP45, Aug Bars, Remington shotguns, UTAS UTS-15 shogtun, AA12, M249 saw, M60, Dragonov SVD sniper rifles, and a Striker shotgun.

The cage however has some of their most devastating gear, such as explosives and some body armor. RPG-7's, LAW rocket launchers, M67 Frag grenades as well as other frags such as some pineapples, flashbangs, smoke grenades, several cases of ammo, and some grenade launchers, even attachments for the large two handed weapons.

The last wall of the room has an array of weapon attachments, from lasers, flashlights, extended magazines to sights. My eyes however land on the small items set in the middle of the table, more specifically, my pistols and my phone. I grab my phone and to my dismay, the batteries dead. _'Shit. How long was I out?'_

While all these are really good and beautiful to look at, it makes me that much more worried as to who I pissed off that has access to the men and firepower of this caliber. As much as I want to admire and take every single one of these weapons, I don't want to be bogged down with the extra equipment. I do however decide to grab some pistols to help me out. I holster the FN, take off the holster, and strap it to my ankle before picking out my new pistols. While this is as good a chance as, I decide to upgrade from my old Beretta's to something a little differently. This time I grab some Beretta 92FS's but with a stainless steel frame to them. I slip those into my inner holsters before grabbing another holster and grabbing my last gun: A FNX-45 Tactical. With a .45 ACP ammo usage and with an ease ability to put on attachments, it'll do. I grab a black colored one, load it, attach a flashlight to it, silencer and set the sights. "Nice."

*Creak*

*Thu*Thu*Thu*

With quick reflexes, I turn around as the door to the room behind me opens and I place three rounds at the person, two to the chest, and one to the head. I dash forward as the body begins to tumble forward and I catch it before it hits the ground. Pulling it in, I look down both hallways to find no one. Reeling back in, I quietly close the door and look back to the body lying face down in a slowly growing pool of blood. _'Damn… its been awhile since I took a life like that.'_ With a heavy sigh, I turn the guys head and close his wide and surprised eyes. Taking a moment for the dead, I go through his pockets for anything I might need. _'Still don't know who these guys are… but if they have this kind of firepower, they must not be for anything good, that's for sure.'_ I pull out something from his back pocket to find a Smartphone similar to mine. Guy didn't even have a passcode for it so I didn't even need to hack to get in. I don't find anything incriminating or anything I can use to find out who this guy works for exactly, but I do find a map of this place. "Perfect. Alright… let's see where I am… okay… now where to-… Oh god." I say in surprise at the sheer massiveness of the structure. It's very big and very large with the amount of rooms and hallways it has but I don't know exactly how big because the map doesn't have scale to it. Some of the rooms are even labeled barracks or sleeping quarters, smoking areas, break rooms, offices, a garage, but to my biggest surprise, this isn't the only armory.

Whoever they are, they have multiple of these small time armories scattered throughout the whole complex. If each one are as stocked up as this one, _'Fuck…'_ I look at the body, "Who are you guys?" I say outloud but I know I don't expect an answer. I go back to the map and look for the closest exit I can find. To my elation, I'm only a few corridors away from the garage so maybe I can steal a car and get the hell out of here fast, maybe destroy some so they don't have the chance to come after me. With my destination in hand, I hold the guys phone in one hand and my FNX Tactical in the other hand, using a Harries flashlight grip technique so I can look at both the map and keep my gun downrange without looking away. I peek out the door and start my way down the hallway towards the garage.

It takes a few minutes and a couple close calls but I find the door to the garage. With very careful movement, I crack open the door and peek through to find the entire place lit up but with no one around. I check my corners inside quickly before I close the door behind me and lock it. Taking a moment to compose myself, I look at the very spacious garage area. It has three double wide garage doors and plenty of tools all around to be used to work on vehicles and such. From what I can guess, this place was probably some type of warehouse before these guys took it over. There are around ten cars here from standard various modeled cars to trucks and even a couple motorcycles, as well as some trailers that could be hitched up to a car or truck. My pistol away, I materialize my sword and get to work at cutting tires left and right. They all cut easily from my sword but I do it carefully so the tires don't explode and make a loud blowout when punctured. I stop at a large truck at the end of the line next to a semi trailer.

I am about to get in the truck when the door to the semi trailer opens up. "Okay. Delivery checks out and is ready to go. Now I just need to- Hey! Argh!" A guy comes out of the trailer with a clipboard and spots me but before he can warn anyone, I throw my sword at him, making it embed itself directly into the guy's chest. He chokes for a second before I take out my pistol and place a few silenced shots into him, making sure he is dead and doesn't scream out. As he falls to the ground with a thud, I go over to him and take out my sword.

"Phew, that was close." I say to myself. I can't help but glance inside the trailer and have my eyes widen at the scene. Very many weapons are placed inside the trailer, along with some other heavy duty pieces of equipment, and what looks like a car under a tarp. I de-materialize my sword before picking up the clipboard and reading the contents of the trailer. "… What the hell?... And this is a delivery!" I say in surprise. "Who are these-?!"

*Tap*

I turn around to the sound of a footstep but I'm not fast enough as a large object comes straight at my face. "Ugh!" I blanch out as the hit feels like a brick against me and sends me stumbling to the ground while letting go of the phone at the same time. My head feels heavy from the hit and stars start dancing across my vision. As I open my eyes, my vision is a little blurry as the floor takes up the majority of vision but also the phone and the rest of the cars in the garage.

*Crack*

A large boot slams onto the phone, breaking the screen entirely and cracking it in half. I weakly turn upwards and see a large figure standing over me. My mild concussion prevents me from discerning any facial features from the guy but I don't get to make anymore assumptions as another guy comes up and hits me with the butt of his rifle, knocking me out.

* * *

"God damnit."One of the guys curses at the situation. He looks towards the body of one of their guys as someone else examines him. "Is he…?"

"He is." The guy proclaims the man dead who was ambushed by their prisoner.

"Shit." He looks down at the unconscious kid and uses all his might to keep from completely tearing him apart for killing a few of his guys… but the boss wants him alive so he has to comply. "You two." He points to the guy who checked the dead body and to the guy who knocked him out with his rifle. "Get him in the van. We can't keep him here any longer. Bind him tightly and get some chloroform to knock him out." The two nod before one goes to grab the kid before taking him to the van outside, and the other goes to grab the items to keep the kid restrained. He looks down the dead body before letting out a sigh. "I go and kidnap the kid for my boss… and for what?" He looks to the unconscious kid before he's dragged outside. "How did you piss him off so much?" He says to himself before heading out to the van.

* * *

The van leaves the large warehouse building on the edge of town soon after and proceeds out of the city, the same van that originally kidnapped Marcus and the same people, the criminals setting forth out of the city to head out of state towards their boss's complex.

Half an hour passes as the van drives smoothly along the interstate in the dead of night as it rains.

"Hey!"

A loud voice is heard as the van suddenly swerves to the left side of the road, flipping over just before it leaves the road and rolling over again and again as it crashes through the forest area, hitting multiple trees, tires tearing off and doors flinging open or tearing off as multiple bodies fly out.

The van eventually stops rolling but not before it rolls on top of someone's arm, the guy screaming out as the fuel tank is punctured and proceeds to leak gas all over the place, the wet ground allowing the gasoline to pour out much farther.

Thunder strikes across the entire night sky, illuminating the entire carnage in a momentary flash of white light.

 **Well, seems like things are not looking to good for Marcus now does it. Having gotten drugged to remain unconscious for a few days, stealthing his way through an unknown enemy complex, getting knocked out and now getting involved in a car wreck?**

 **Man he has all the luck.**

 **Anyway, my stint with Mafia 3 is over and my tests are finished. The game was awesome and I failed a test. Yeah it sucks but take heart in knowing that it was absolutely not because of me writing or playing my game. The teacher only told us to read the entirety of two chapters for the test and that's something I'm not very good with. Thankfully she said she was going to add some study guides to help for future tests and added additional assignments because apparently I wasn't the only one getting a little low in grades for her class. Usually I'm not too privy to extra work but I think I can manage if it means I don't have to focus entirely on tests. I've also taken to playing some XCOM 2 off and on again but the majority of my attention can now be set back to this story, however I also modded the game so I need to find a proper sniper for me to give him or her the Widow from Mass Effect. Hopefully with the temporary less time I spent on this story goes away and allows me to really ramp up my chapter production again. You may have spotted some errors here and there and I was honestly surprised at how much I noticed and had to correct when I was writing. Hopefully I get out of this funk soon so I can deliver quality work to you guys and stuff that won't make me cringe or lie awake at night. Maybe expect the next chapter roughly the same length as this one but who knows. I always come up with new things all the time.**

 **Thank you for your patience with me and have fun reading.**


	22. 21 Freedom

**Just a warning guys, there will be a pretty graphic scene around the end of the chapter.**

"Now do you think I'm being paranoid?" Pearl sternly asks Garnet and Amethyst. Steven meanwhile left with his friends Lars and Sadie on some camping trip from what they could gather after the whole fiasco with the gem creatures that he, Pearl and Amethyst let loose into the temple by accident and had to go hunting for them. Now though its day five and Marcus still isn't back yet.

"Alright, maybe he's a little late." Amethyst drones out from the couch as Garnet reads a magazine.

"A little?!" Pearl states loudly, lightly startling the purple gem but Garnet remains indifferent. "It's been almost a week and we still haven't heard anything from him!" She worriedly says as she paces back and forth in front of them. "What if he got caught on a tree on the way down? What if his chute ripped and he got stabbed by some branches?! I've been looking into parachute accidents or injuries that may occur and-!"

"Pearl." The hysterical gem stops her pacing as her name is called out by their leader. Both her and Amethyst look to Garnet. "Can we at least give him to the end of the week? I'm sure he's taken some time to gather his thoughts about everything… or maybe he went to get some supplies." She says without looking up from her reading material. She looks to Pearl, "If in the near future he decides to go ahead with some space exploration, he doesn't want a repeat of what happened last time."

Pearl looks away in embarrassment at her brash actions involving the space ship. "Maybe… but-"

"Pearl, just the end of the week. That's all I'm asking." Garnet requests. Amethyst looks a little hopeful at the idea as well, mostly so she doesn't have to hear Pearl complain again and again.

She stares at the neutral looking gem for a few moments before letting out a sigh, "Fine. The week ends in a couple of days so if he doesn't come back till then, we go looking." She agrees albeit a little reluctantly.

"No problem." Garnet returns to reading while Amethyst gets up to grab something to eat.

With a slight head shake, she walks over to the window and sits down in front of it. "Where are you?" She mutters to herself, hoping that their friend is alright.

* * *

*Chirp*Chirp*

"Arrrrggghh." I let out a low groan as I weakly open my eyes. My vision is blurry again and my muscles feel sore as hell, more so in my left arm. I spot a little bird in front of me, chirping, but as I try to get up, it gets scared off and flaps away. I slowly but achingly try to get to my feet but I feel like a ton of bricks are weighing every part of my body down. I only manage to sit up as I wince a little as the sun hits my face so I use my hand to temporarily shield me from it as I pull out my phone with the other. I let out a frustrated groan as I remember its battery is still dead. "Fuck." I curse under my breath at still not finding anything out. "Well, I'm not gonna learn anything here." Preparing myself, I carefully get to my feet. I wobble a bit as I stand but I manage to steady myself enough where I can walk, albeit a little woozy but nothing too bad. I find where the road is and I am about to go out into the open but I duck back as I spot cop cars all over the place. "Shit." I start to quietly make my way back into the forest so I don't get spotted by the police.

' _With how I look and act, they would have to be the densest police officers to put together that I was part of the wreck.'_ I remember vaguely of what happened to the van but not fully and I can't make any assumptions while I'm this close to getting caught. I go a few meters deep into the forest until I'm out of sight from the road. I soon come across a small clean stream and I can't help but collapse onto my knees next to it so I can drink from it. The cool water flowing down my throat as I cup my hands against my face feels divine as my throat was feeling a little dry. I grab another cup full of water in my hands and splash it against my face, alleviating me a little of my woozy demeanor but the rest of me still feels like crap. I let out deep breaths of air as water drips down my face and back into the water. When the water steady's itself again, I stare at my reflection as I notice my disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes. "Damn." I look to the skies as I get back to my feet. _'What happened?'_ Without a definite answer for me, I start walking in the opposite direction of where we were going last night.

It takes me some time but I eventually come upon a small gas station next to the road. After making sure no one is watching, I limp out of the woods behind the store before heading straight to the front doors.

The door makes the telltale chiming noise when it opens, immediately catching notice of the clerk behind the counter. "Hi. Can I help you?" I hear the guy say but I ignore him and head straight for the refrigerators in the back. Spotting a carton of orange juice, I take it out and start drinking it right then and there.

After downing half the carton, I let out a loud breath of relief. "Oh man, that was heaven." I groan out before grabbing some snacks as well and dropping them onto the counter. The guy looks at me for a second before casually scanning the items. I let my head drop to the counter in a moment of respite.

"Fun night?"

"Huh?" I question looking at him.

"You must have had a fun time last night." He says with a smile.

"What are you-?" I begin to question but I take a moment to compose myself as to how I look. _'Look like hell, bloodshot eyes, woozy demeanor, tired self… he thinks I was drunk and I have a hangover.'_ "Oh, right. Yeah, I guess. Man, I feel like hell." I groan as I wipe a hand on my face.

"Well it looks like you had a great time. I mean, you're not the first person who came here after suddenly waking up in the middle of the forest alone and barely remembering anything." He says as he finishes swiping my items. "Do you… remember anything?" he asks hesitantly.

I look at him for a bit before I look down and close my eyes, trying to remember what happened. _'I remember I was tied up… then I grabbed my sword and…'_

* * *

 _*Tires screech*_

 _The van starts tumbling off the road and I go flying out._

* * *

I lightly grip my left arm with my right as I remember what happened and what I learned. "Somewhat." I say to him. _'Might as well stick to the assumption. Don't need him thinking about I was a part of that crash.'_

"Do you need me to call someone or…?" He trails off.

"No no. I have some friends in town. I'll walk. Besides, I want to get some fresh air after last night." I tell him. He nods before ringing up my total.

"$9.75."

I drop a twenty on the counter and gather the bags of snacks and my carton. "Keep the change." I say and head out the door.

"T-thank you! Good luck getting back to your friends!" He calls out to me as I continue to walk.

' _Oh don't worry, I'll get back to my friends… right after I deal with some people.'_ I think as I start to formulate plans.

* * *

It's night time now. After I finished eating all my food, I was able to find the warehouse I was stuck in so I decided to wait until the cover of night before I made my attack. I still have my new Beretta's and my FNX-45 Tactical but the Five-seveN was lost in the crash. I decided to just stick with what I have as my plan will get me some new weapons before I even start the attack.

Slowly, I crouch my way to the side of the warehouse before shuffling to the only open warehouse door. I watch as someone uses some chains to pull the door closed while talking to someone else. In quick movement, I roll under the door just before it closes and hide behind a crate in front of that trailer carrying that delivery I saw earlier.

"Can't believe that kid fucked up Mac like that." I hear one of them converse to the other.

"Yeah. I don't know what he used but man that was a lot of blood."

"Yep. Joe also told me how that fucker managed to knock him out and already the cleaners had to dispose of a few other body's."

"I know right!" One of them asks incredulously. Their footsteps start to retreat away from me. "I don't know who he pissed off but I'm glad he's out of our hair. Can't believe we actually lost guys to that son of a bitch."

"Maybe after the boss gets back we can ask him what they did to him."

"Yeah, I guess."

Their voices have diminished and I hear the sounds of a door opening and closing. Peeking out, I find the garage is a ghost town like before. This time all the cars I flattened the tires of have those very tires removed and looks like are in the process of being changed. I immediately head to two of the three standard doors that lead into the complex of the warehouse and start locking and barricading them. They all are steel and have square view ports to look through so I leave those open for my plan. Once the doors are locked and barricaded enough that it would take a team of football players to break through, I simply lock the last one and head to the trailer and open the back door.

As I open the door, I spot the clipboard that was placed inside and immediately take a more detailed look of the contents. Once I'm satisfied, I jump in and tear off the tarp cover to the car. I smile as I lay my eyes on the 1973 Ford XB GT Falcon that was meant for some rich person in Europe. If you want to feel giddy about it, it's also the car modeled by none other than what Mad Max drives. After taking off the straps holding the car in place, I get to work.

* * *

It takes me over half an hour but I get everything set up. I pushed the car out of the trailer instead of driving it out because I don't want the roar of the engine to make anyone suspicious. I push it so it's backed against a large flat open trailer and I hook it up. I also grab a couple gas canisters filled with gasoline and place them I the trunk before taking a third and giving myself a full tank of gas. After making sure I have an engine and it'll work, and grabbing the keys, I proceed to ferry cases, crates and boxes filled with over a dozen or more weapons, dozens of parts, items and equipment I can make very much use of in the future, to the trailer along with large ammunition boxes filled to the brim with hundreds of bullets, and strap them all down to make sure they don't fall off when I drive. Needless to say, I also found a unique crate with the contents wrapped in plastic that should make sure that I no longer have a money issue. I also place the cars tarp over them and strap it down to make sure no one gets suspicious of my cargo and the elements don't damage anything. After opening the garage door, I take three guns, load them up and lay one each to two of the doors I locked. I take an M60 for one. With the narrow hallways that the doors lead to and the deep 100-round magazine that it carries, its perfect to hold them back at one of the doors. Another, I choose an AA12 shotgun to use. The Large drum magazines, plus the spread pattern, and the full auto capability ensures that no one is getting close or through. And finally, I choose an AK12 for my last weapon. The modernized version of the AK47 is what one could say about but it's also because I have double-taped magazines for it that should make sure that I can reload quick and because of the reliability it has, should any of the other weapons jam, break or I can't reload fast enough, I have a back-up to rely on.

With the guns placed, I take a few more gas canisters and head to the door I only locked and place them in the hallway next to a window. After smashing it open, I grab one of the canisters and start pouring gas all over the hallway floor and walls, including the other canisters, before leaving a trail to the garage. Once I lock it down again, I look around for something to light it easily. "Let's see… let's see… Ah!" I spot an acetylene torch nearby and drag it over to the gas puddle under the door. "Alright, now I just-… Oh." I cut myself off as I spot a fire alarm on the wall nearby. "Huh, that would have saved me some trouble."

Since I know who these guys are, and what it looks like they deal in, leading the police to them would be a perfect thing to do. Plus after having to deal with the police, this could possibly distract them enough from me so I can think of my next plan against them. I was going to set a fire and use the guns to hold them off until the authority's get here, but it looks like they refurbished the warehouse rather than built it themselves because the fire alarm system is still connected. _'After all, if you're dealing in some pretty illegal activities, the last thing you want to do is use a 911 service to your location. These guys either forgot or are really cocky of their operation.'_

I walk over and grab the fire alarm switch, "Alright… let's do this."

*RING*RING*RING*RING*RING*RING*RING*

Instantly, the alarm goes off very loudly and I hear panicked voices inside the building.

"WHO THE FUCK TRIGGERED THE FIRE ALARM?!" I hear one guys yell down the hallway.

"Eh, one more for good measure." I shrug as I grab the acetylene tank and push it through the hole in the door. Grabbing the torch and reaching through, I turn on the torch, feeling the heat it gives off in an instant. Just before I drop it in the gas, I spot some guys at the end of the hallway.

"HEY!" One of them yells loudly before charging at me. I give him a salute before dropping the torch. I immediately duck back and head for another door as I hear screams. I spot guys heading down the hallway to me. Grabbing the M60, I push it through the hole and open fire. The weapon has a massive kickback to it but because of my strength and the fact that I'm using the door to brace it steady, bullets fly directly down the hallway. A few guys immediately get hit and go down, some duck to the ground while others bust into some side rooms. After a bit, I stop going full auto and instead send rounds downrange in short bursts to make them hesitate. Once half the magazine is done, I place it back on the table before bolting to the last door. I slide over a car's hood as I stop in front of the door and pick up the shotgun. Assessing the hallway, I see guys much closer than before. Not wasting any time, I fire in short bursts. Because of the buck shots, the pelts don't fly as far or hard as standard bullet, the shots are enough to injure some guys and force the others to seek cover. With them pinned down, I head back to the M60 and real quickly I send a short burst out before heading to the fire door. Grabbing the AK in case they got past the fire, I'm happy to see that they haven't.

"Good. That's one door that I don't have to worry about." I comment. Before I can go back to defending, I hear sirens blaring. Looking out a window, I see some fire trucks pull up on the road a little ways away. The warehouse isn't right next to the road, only a dirt road connects it to the paved one. "Yes." I mutter at seeing them respond. Unfortunately, I only spot firemen and no cops. "Shit!" I curse loudly and quickly think. _'Those firefighters will be slaughtered by these guys if they get close. How do I stop them from-'_ I look down at my AK and sigh. "I guess." I smash the window open and pop off a few rounds in the direction of the fire trucks. I don't aim for anything vital or anyone, just enough to make sure they know they are getting shot at. My quick plan works as I spot the guys run behind the fire truck for cover. To really seal the deal, I let out a long burst along the road so they know it's not a fluke. Satisfied with terrifying the responders, I go back to holding the enemy back. With each passing moment, the guys continue to push closer and closer to the doors and when I have to reload the AA12 or M60, they really make progress. Before long I am now hiding behind a car as the guys try to bust down the door while also shooting through the viewing port. "Shit! How much longer until they get here?!" I ask out loud as I reload my AK. I can't the others because they are still on the table and those jackasses have me pinned.

My moment of worry is gone as I also hear the sounds of another type of siren. "Time to go." I say. With a new magazine, I pop out of cover and spray both doors, making the guys retreat a little before sliding into the driver seat. I place the AK in the passenger seat and turn the key.

*VRRROOOOOMMM*

With a satisfied smile, the car turns on with a monstrous roar. Not wasting a moment, I hit the gas and peel out of the garage as the doors behind me bust open. The guys try to shoot at me but I'm already gone and now they have to deal with the authority's.

* * *

A bunch of police cars race down the road I was traveling on towards town but it's futile. Turning the headlights on, I drive out from within the woods and continue on my way home in the opposite direction casually.

I let out a sigh of relief at the situation I just went through and am glad that I'm finally heading home. I plug in my phone to charge before setting the cruise control and relaxing.

Rain hits my car as I drive down the road like the night of the crash, the droplets hitting my windshield with heavy splats; I glance to the side as I pass the crash site of the van, my mind recalling what happened vividly.

* * *

 _I have a headache again as I slightly open my eyes. The area around me is completely dark and it takes a second for me to adjust. From the slight rumbling around and under me, I can hazard a guess that I'm in a moving vehicle, what with my limbs tied up again. This time my legs are in the same boat as my hands tied in front of me. Slowly but carefully, I glance around until I see the front seats of the vehicle I'm in. There are three guys, the driver, the passenger, and the third guy behind them leaning over the seat. My guns are gone but I still have access to my swords but I can only pull one out._

 _I try to formulate a plan for me somehow get out of this without me dying. I have no idea what weapons these guys have and chances are they're a bit more cautious after my impromptu escape from my cell._

 _One idea does stick out, the result will be less than satisfactory but it should guarantee total chaos and maybe some lives lost or incapacitated, hopefully not mine. As the rumble of the van continues down the road, I slowly yet carefully slide my way to the back of the van without them noticing. It only takes me a few pulls to pull me to the back left side of the van where I know the tire is. Carefully, I sit up and reach with both hands to the right side of my shoulder. The familiar sound and feel of my sword appearing in my hands is instant._

" _Hey!"_

 _Unfortunately the guys took note of my action. I twirl my sword in hand before holding it above me in stabbing motion to ground. I stare into their eyes with anger._

 _I stab down._

 _The sheet metal covering the bottom of the van gives way easily to my sword and almost instantly my sword is torn from my hands, cutting through the more of the floor as the blade remains embedded into axle of the tire. The vehicle shakes and shudders soon after and the driver tries to fight for control of the vehicle but utterly fails. A loud metal tearing sound accompanies the back left part of the van smashing and scraping along the paved road and swiftly turns off the road._

 _The rest is a blur of movement and flipping as the van flips over and rolls for I don't know how long. All occupants are thrown all over the place like ragdolls, except the driver who is wearing his seatbelt so he gets whiplash, until the doors start opening up and some of us are thrown out._

* * *

" _Ahhhhhhh!" I yell as the van rolls over onto my left arm a bit below my gem. I try to push the van off but I don't have proper leverage to add enough force. My arm is caught between the metal outer shell of van and a large flat rock, ensuring that I can't wriggle myself free._

" _Uhhhhh…" I look to my right and watch as another one of those jackasses tries to crawl away from the wreckage and me. I reach for him in an effort to stop him but I don't reach._

 _To my horror I immediately smell the distinct odor of gasoline. Looking around, I spot a puddle forming through the rain under another part of the van but it rapidly continues to grow towards me. In my haste, I use my free arm to summon one of my swords and jam it under the van next to my trapped arm. I try to use my sword to lift the van off me but I can't. I still don't have proper leverage for me lift the fucking thing off of me. I pull my sword out and watch as the guy continues to crawl away and the puddle of gas grows larger. 'Shit! Shit! Shit! What do I do?! What the fuck do I do?! I can push this thing off! I can't wrench my arm out! How do I free myse-…!'_

 _A piece of the storm above moves, revealing the moon as its shine reflects off my sword, cutting me off. I stare at the blade gripped tightly in my right hand, a horrible idea filling my thoughts._

 _I sigh and breathe in calmly._

" _Extremis Malis… Extrema Remedia." I say lowly. Carefully, I maneuver my sword above my arm…_

 _And bring it down._

" _AHHHHHHHHH!" I scream loudly, the feeling of the blade cutting through the flesh of my arm below my gem. Blood starts flowing out the wound. 'Can't stop… can't stop…' I bring my sword up for another chop. "AHHHHH!" I yell as the blade hits bone. Without losing my momentum, I bring my sword up again multiple times and hit the bone, the feel of it cracking under the stress until it finally breaks. "Ahhhhh… haaaa… ahhhh… oh god." I groan out at the feeling going through my entire body._

 _The tearing of the nerves sent waves upon waves of pain coursing through my brain, the bone cracking sent reverberates all throughout my entire skeletal system, and large spurts of blood immediately start coating my sword and everything all around me. 'One more… one more…' I think with tears flowing down my face and my entire body shaking. With one last hurdle I bring my sword up… and down. "Ahhhhhh!" I scream again as more of my flesh is torn. At the same time, I pull myself away from the van, what little is left of my arms nerves tear off as muscle and skin is pulled apart._

 _I roll a couple times away from the van until I land squarely on my back. I breathe in deeply but quickly as my body gets pelted with rain. Weakly, I look at my severed arm. My mind starts to take in the fact that I have permanently lost my arm and I start freaking out a bit… but one other feeling overwrites them._

 _You know how sometimes people say that when they lose their limb, they can somewhat feel it's there… I have that. I know my arm is stuck under the van and I'm staring at the stump… but the feelings still there. I want to move it… but I can't._

" _Holy shit." The new voice causes me to look to my right, allowing me to spot the guy crawling away before, now staring at me. Anger now filling me, I struggle to stand up for a second but I manage to use my sword to push myself up. Once standing, I hobble over to the guy and stab my sword through his thigh. "ARGHHHH!" He yells out in pain._

" _Who are you?" I ask with no emotion._

" _Fuck yo- ARGH!" I twist the sword._

" _Wrong answer." I tilt the sword along his leg slightly. "I'll ask again… who are you guys?"_

" _I'm not telling you-!"_

" _Nope." I bring my right leg up and slam it onto the guys kneecap on his uninjured leg, shattering it._

" _AHHHHHH!"_

" _Again!" I tear out my sword before stabbing him again in the same area. "Who! Are! You?!" I yell each word, punctuating them with another stab again and again. "TELL ME?!" I scream in his face._

" _AHHHHHH!... THE IRON KINGS!"_

 _I freeze, stopping my sword from stabbing him again. "…What?"_

" _Argh! The Iron Kings! That's who we are! I don't know how but you pissed off my boss enough to get us to come after you." He manages to say through the pain I inflicted on him._

' _The Iron Kings?... but who did I…?'_

" _What the fuck?!" The guys screams out, interrupting me from my thoughts. I stare at him to find out what's got him so freaked but he's staring at me. More specifically, I follow his eyes to… my arm._

 _My eyes widen as I see something happen to the wound. The blood has completely stopped flowing and there are slight sparkles emanating off wound. Right before my very eyes, I watch as the bone starts to grow back. Achingly slow, the bone grows more and more until it reaches the elbow, forming the joint before continuing along my upper arm. The bone grows to my left hand, the wrist forming, then the palm, and finally all five of my fingers grow back at the same time. There is a momentary pause, which I use to flex my hand and watch in amazement as the fingers move as well. "What… the…?" I breathe out as more continues._

 _Next, I watch as lines of red and blue start to go out from the wound and snake their way faster than the bones growth up and around my arm. The veins and blood vessels finish connecting the circulation throughout my arm before it pauses again._

 _Next up, the muscles start bulging out from the wound and slightly bubbles its way up my arm, perfectly forming against the bones and veins before stopping at my finger tips._

 _Finally, the skin starts to form but this time it grows out all over my arm instead of starting at the wound. Splotches of my skin start to form all around my arm before everything completely sets. As soon as the last bit of my arm forms, I instantly feel the water hitting my arm as well as feeling in the rest of it. I flex my fingers a few times before rolling my arm around checking every bit of it._

' _It's… back… My arm is… back.'_

" _What are you?" I look down at the guy under me who looks at me with almost pure confusion and fear. I stare at him for a moment before I sniff my nose and twirl my sword in my right hand, making him flinch. Looking to his side, I spot my Beretta's on the ground nearby and my FNX-45 Tactical on his person. After taking both sets, I start walking._

" _You'll never know." I say firmly to him. To his confusion, I walk past him, almost like I'm going to leave him alone… at least until I slice a rock nearby, creating a spark. The guy watches in horror as the spark flies through the air and lands in a puddle trail of gasoline… right next to him._

 _I continue to walk away, not bothering to look back as my kidnapper screams in agony at the flames engulfing his entire body; the rain fall not hitting as much or hard enough to put him out. The flames travel along the trail of gas until it hits the van._

 _*Boooom!*_

 _I can feel the heat and force of the van exploding lightly hit my back but I continue to walk away._

 _I follow along the carnage trail of the vans rolls back to the road. I stand on the paved roadway as I look both left and right, trying to figure out where I should go._

" _Ugh!" I groan loudly for a second before violent coughs start racking through my entire body. I bring my hand to my mouth to try to stem my coughing but I continue to cough violently. When I pause, I look at my hand to see it almost completely covered in blood. I start to lightly cough and my breathing becomes labored as my body starts to go numb. I start hobbling across the street to the woody area across from the crash site. My vision begins to blur as I make my way through the woods. 'Oh god… what's happening?!... It hurts… hurts so much…' My thoughts start to weaken as pain goes through my entire body, numbness starting to set in for multiple parts of my body and pieces of me start to shut down. 'Fuck… am I dying?... I can't… tell...' I collapse onto my knees before falling forward roughly, my body shutting down as my vision starts to go. 'Steven… Amethyst… Garnet… Lapis… Pearl...'_

" _H-… heeeelllp." Everything goes black._

* * *

I shake my head of the memory and continue on my way down the road past the police. They've already erected some sort of crime scene area but I have no idea if they'll link me to it. I set myself off the grid for years and I've done what I could to make sure that at scenes where I fought monsters at wouldn't be able to link me to them. I don't know if my severed arm disappeared when my new one appeared but hopefully it got so charred up that they couldn't get any useable DNA off of it, especially with the forest, fire and rain probably contaminating everything there. Hopefully they'll chalk it up to an accident but I better keep tabs on this, just in case, as well as other things.

' _The Iron Kings… who are you to want me?'_ I ask myself. I remember some guys I've fought and killed in the past, some I took their lives, others I led the police too. I need to find out more about these guys because if they were able to grab me outside of town after my parachute journey, they must have been waiting for an opportunity. I'm gonna have to really do some digging around to find their agenda.

*Ding*

Looking down, I spot that my phone has gotten enough charge for me to browse through it now. After making sure that no cops are nearby, I quickly look at the calendar to find out how long I've been gone.

"SONE OF A-!"

*Honk*Honk*

"Shit!" I curse as I quickly turn my car back onto my lane of the road. In my surprise, I drifted onto the oncoming lane and almost collided straight into another car. I was able to dodge the car in time and right myself. I have also started breathing a little erratically at how much time I've been gone and the near head-on collision. "Fuck… six days… I've been gone for almost a week." _'These guys were able to have me captured and incapacitated for almost a week. If the guns and this supposed delivery were any indication, these guys obviously don't fuck around.'_ Making sure to keep myself sturdy, I check my location in tandem with where Beach City is. It takes a few taps but I find that I'm really far away. "Damnit." I place my phone back down and shift gears, my car jerking forward with increased speed.

"I gotta get back home." I say firmly as I drive off into the night.

* * *

 _One day later…_

"See ya later Peedee!"

"Bye Steven!" The two kids wish each other goodbye. Steven continues on home with the Crystal gems after the debacle with Ronaldo.

"Well that was… fun." Amethyst says, trying to find a proper word to describe Ronaldos brash actions and almost dying after he tried to fight the gems.

"Yeah, it was pretty cool." Steven replies with a smile.

"Cool?!" Pearl asks the young gem incredulously. " You do realize that you were kidnapped and we were attacked by that human?"

"If you can call that attacking." Garnet comments on the conspiracy hungry humans way of fighting.

"But it all worked in the end." Steven replies.

"Buuuut aren't we back where we started? You know they guys still crazy or something like that?" Amethyst asks.

"Regardless," Pearl interrupts them, not wanting to continue this round of debate when another matter is more important. "The week passes tomorrow morning Garnet. Now you promised that when it ends-"

"We go searching. I know. A deals a deal." Garnet finishes up for Pearl.

"Great!" She says with excitement and hands clasped together in front of her. "Now I remember the general direction in which Marcus drifted off too. I'll draw up a map and set a grid search pattern within a 5 mile radius. Then we can-"

"What's that?"

"Huh?" Stevens interrupting question confuses Pearl for a moment until she sees where he's pointing to. All eyes take note of the brand new car attached to a trailer with a tarp over the back parked next to Marcus's truck. "Who's is that?"

"Mm-mm." Amethyst shrugs.

"Garnet?" Pearl asks the gem.

"It's-"

"Maybe he's back!" Steven interrupts the neutral gem with an excited shout before running off to the house.

"Wait Steven!" Pearl calls out to the excited kid before running after him.

The other two watch as their friends race to the house to find the mystery guest. "You knew, didn't you?" Amethyst asks her tall counterpart.

"Hm hm… maybe." Garnet lightly chuckles before answering innocently, emphasizing it with a slight tug of her visor. Amethyst lets out a sigh at the crypticness of her leader. "C'mon, let's go see how he is."

"Alright." The both of them casually walk towards the house after the others. It isn't long before the two make it up the stairs where they see Seven and Pearl standing together in just in front of the door. "Hey guys. What's everyone standing around… for?" Amethysts question trails off as she spots the guy sitting on the couch.

"Marcus?" Garnet questions in confusion. She knew he would be back, her future vision told her so, but in what condition was another matter.

All members stare at the hybrid sitting on the couch, casually looking over a KRISS Vector CRB Carbine while his feet remain propped up on a square object covered by small blanket. He looks over to the visitors he's been waiting for. "Hey guys. I'm back." He says with a smile.

"W-we can see that." Pearl answers uneasily, a little worried and confused at seeing the state their friend is in.

"Marcus," He looks at the tall magenta gem, "What happened?" she asks firmly.

With a sigh, Marcus places down his Vector SMG on the table before taking stock of how he looks. It's only until now that he's noticed how disheveled he looks, from the torn pants, ripped and bloody shirt, tired expression, and the fact that the entire left sleeve of his clothes have been ripped off. Looking back to the others, he takes his feet off his makeshift footstool… and kicks it.

Stacks upon stacks of fifty to one-hundred dollar bills wrapped together fall off the pile and from under the blanket, spilling out until a quite a few almost completely slide over to the gems. Surprise is immediately etched onto the faces off all four members of his audience. They stare at the thousands of dollars worth of bills in front of them for a few moments until they look up to their friend who was missing for a week.

"As it turns out, you girls… your enemies are gems… Me…" He grabs his Vector and holds it up before leaning back, "Turns out… mine are also human."

 **Before you guys flame me and say that Marcus is too OP now with that regenerating ability, take note that minutes after his arm reformed, he fell completely unconscious and his body went into a complete dormant state for a full days worth of time. I don't know about you but in the middle of combat, that's something that wouldn't be helpful in the moment you know? Just wanted to make that clear.**

 **Now for the scene itself, I'm really debating to set this story to the M rating now but I'll need you guys to confirm if I should or not. Something like that I've seen plenty of before in many anime's, movies and games so it doesn't faze me but I don't know for others. If you think I should stick to T or M, go ahead and say so. I just don't want any backlash you know. I'm very paranoid like that.**

 **Now it also looks like Marcus no longer has a money issue and doesn't have to regularly steal to get some. Now with a new ride, new weapons… new enemies, let's see how things turn out.**

 **Next up, Marcus expands a little more on the situation with the Iron Kings and he meets some parents. Those of you keeping track of the episodes choreography, you know who they are.**

 **As always, have fun reading.**


	23. Authors Note 2

**Alright, I think its time for another author notes section. I'm sure there are plenty more questions that you guys want answered but hopefully I can answer at least some or the most pressing questions.**

 **Fusion:** **The idea is there and some of you have already expressed some descriptions for possible fusions but to be honest, when I first made this story the idea of fusion never dawned on me so I hope you understand that I'm not going to jump into fusions with Marcus any time soon. Maybe after Jailbreak but we'll just have to wait and see.**

 **The Invasion:** **Let's be honest, everyone one of us knows for a fact that the point when the Homeworld gems invade, things changes pretty significantly. Marcus won't be an exception to the changes and I hope you guys support with what I got going on.**

 **Jenny and other characters:** **As you may have noticed, I don't usually stray too far from the episodes themselves so if you usually expect others who weren't in the episode but appear in the series, to appear, the chances are kind of low. I'll look into moments in the future where Marcus may have a moment or two with other teenagers or other people in general but don't 'expect' it.**

 **Rating:** **Not a whole lot of you expressed that I should change it to M, so I won't however when it comes to day to day things, so to say, with the gems and episodes, don't expect anything too major in the language department or as… violent as in the last chapter. I will make sure to warn everyone of anything graphic or harsh language that my pop up in the future chapters.**

 **Weapons:** **As you many have noticed, Marcus has a very large arsenal of weapons to use. The type of weapons he uses aren't specific to one type or style of weapon to use. If some of you think I may be using weapons that are overused in a way, it's because I like how they are or the way they've been portrayed in some games or movies. In the future I do plan to maybe expand on other types of weaponry for him to use, not just human firearms.**

 **There are also moments where I may leave you cryptic moments, pieces of info or scenes that may make no sense at the moment, but rest assured that if something doesn't make sense right now or right then and there, the answer will be revealed in the future.**

 **There is also one other thing I want to address to you guys:**

 **The Series Plot:** **Some of you at the time were wondering if Marcus was actually going to go with Lapis back to Homeworld when she left. As the moment passed, he obviously didn't go but the one main reason why I may have not addressed some things here and there pertaining to gems or Homeworld in general, it's because the series is still in development. The fourth season isn't even over yet and already the show is renewed for a fifth season. I was watching a sneak peek youtube video of the next episode 'Gem Harvest' and someone in the comments mentioned that it was confirmed that in season 5 the gems would be going to Homeworld. I live faraway from** ** **any live showings or comic-cons** so the idea of me going to them are out of the question so stuff like videos are the only info I have to go on really. I don't want to mention or create anything that could possibly be introduced in the future by the canon standards from the show itself. For instance, I was thinking of having other gem warriors from Homeworld appear and give Marcus a run for his money in combat, but I don't want to introduce a new gem that the show already has plans for in the future. If I make something and then the series brings it out in their own way, then I would have to go back and completely change things around to fit the canon storyline. Some of you may feel it's unnecessary for me to do that but as you may have noticed, I'm writing along with canon, I'm not diverging off into something completely different that you all have seen with other Steven Universe fics. Sure I've strayed a couple times, as evident in the last chapter, but I'm always going to try to stick along with the shows plotline. This show is so awesome and badass, the lore, the people, the opportunities are amazing and it's allowed me to make this story to begin with, something that you all seem to like so much. I hope you'll forgive me for my cautiousness with possibly adding new lore to the gems in general, but rest assured that so far things involving humans seem somewhat fair game.**

 **I'm sure I've missed a few questions or concerns so go ahead and PM me or review the question you want answered under this one. The next chapter is half way done so hopefully I can get it out soon and answer any questions you ask.**

 **Also as another warning, I'm going to get Battlefield 1 so again, expect a slight delay in the next couple chapters. Sorry.**

 **Thank you all for your continued support of this story and have fun reading.**


	24. 22 Fusion Cuisine

**I want to make one thing clear for everyone who's read up to this point and supported me.**

 **I do not own the show "Steven Universe" whatsoever. Everything that appears in the show and all the characters involved belong to their respective creators.**

 **The only thing I own in this story is my OC, Marcus Jade Castellanos, and The Iron Kings.**

 **With that established, on with the show.**

* * *

I definitely made an impression on the gems for my impromptu return. After a week of being gone, I guess the last thing they expected was for me to suddenly reappear with a large stack of cash, new weapons and other parts, and a new car. Luckily I came back just as they were dealing with some conspiracy enthusiast named Ronaldo in town and Steven was all tuckered out. I promised to explain to him what happened while I was gone but in a more… toned down version of what transpired. I told them about the kidnapping, the human gang, their weapons and armaments, equipment and gear they have at their disposal, as well as the lives I had to take. I didn't mention the whole regenerating thing I went through because I didn't want them to worry. Plus I'm gonna try to figure out just how this regeneration works. It wasn't just my arm that was fixed, any bruises and cuts I had sustained also healed as well. I don't know if it was the trauma of my arm being torn off that activated the ability but it's not like I'm going to test it out by hacking off my arm again, once was enough thank you.

When I told them, obviously, they were worried about the implications that this could bring.

* * *

" _This… could be a problem." Garnet says uneasily._

" _Yeah." Amethyst agrees with her and so does Pearl with a head nod._

" _I know… crap." I let out a frustrated sigh as I stare at the ceiling. "The guys said that I pissed someone off to garner their attention. Out of all the moments in my past, I can't remember any one person that stands out that would want my head. All the guys I dealt with were either small time thugs or worked alone." I explain to them._

" _Mmmmmm… we'll have to be cautious then." Garnet says with a hand to her chin. The other two nod in agreement._

 _I look at her, "What? You're not going to ask me to leave and take this problem with me?" I simply ask her. The Iron Kings want me for some reason, not the others. Anyone else would likely ask me to leave and take my problems elsewhere._

" _Why?" Thankfully, the gems aren't just anyone. "You could have left when we were dealing with those monsters. You could have let yourself live in isolation and not deal with other gems in general." Garnet explains._

" _You've had our back the whole time you've been here…" Amethyst says._

"… _With some rough patches here and there," Pearl adds, "But you always came back." She finishes with a smile._

" _If those humans want you," She smirks. "They're going to have to get through us."_

 _I stare at all three of them for a few quiet moments before I close my eyes and let out a few chuckles. "He he he… haaaa…" I look at them. "Thank you. I won't let you down." I say with a smile._

* * *

After our conversation that night, they also got me up to speed on things I missed. For one, Steven, Pearl and Amethyst screwed up a little and decided to form a 'secret team' to fix their problem before Garnet found out…. Which she did.

Steven went on a camping trip with Sadie and Lars for several days because they couldn't find the teleporter back but apparently some issues arose and they returned battered, bruised and with a gem.

Finally, on the night I came back, Steven was hanging out with Ronaldo on some conspiracy theories he had about weird things happening in Beach City but proved false when he found out they were all caused by us gems. You'd think he would have been tipped off when he found some of my bullet casings laying around but apparently not. He then kidnapped Steven and the gems were forced to go rescue him, which is why when I came home they were gone.

After that, I spent the next week taking inventory of what I got from The Iron Kings and moving things around. As usual, I got plenty of arms and armor for me to use in the future. I've got some snipers to look at, an M40A3 bolt-action rifle with a forest green color to it and a bipod, Macmillan Tac-50, a Dragonov SVD, even an AS50 Anti-material sniper rifle. For assault rifles, I have an ACR, a Tavor X95, and I still have the AK12 in my car. SMG's: Uzi, Mac-10, and some Glocks fitted for full auto. Shotguns: Striker, SPAS-12 and a Mossberg 590A1. I would have had the AA12 but I was forced to leave it back at the base. I have a couple LMG's as well, an M240L, PKP Pecheneg and even two Browning M2 .50 cal machine guns. Another couple crates I got contained a variety of modifications and attachments I can add to all my guns, using rails, lasers, flashlights, silencers, different magazines, and even stocks. I also got a ton of other bullet variants to go along with my weapons, from tracer rounds to hollow point, slugs, buckshot's, solid brass rounds, and even incendiary rounds for all types of guns I have. Thanks to the replicator I still have, ammo isn't a problem for me but I have to be careful with how much I make, otherwise I'll start to overflow in gear.

' _Maybe I should build or contract a house to be built for me. I'm sure I can get a permit from the mayor to build a house near where the gems live. A garage would be nice, an actual bed, maybe a basement, extra rooms for me to store my stuff…'_

I'll probably petition to the mayor for a good spot to build a house but for now, I also got some other items that I can make use of. For one thing I got disassembled parts I can put back together to make an ammo press, and as well as benches I can use to shape, mod, change my weapons if need be. Hell, I also have parts I can use to build my own forge if I want to. Guns are nice and I have plenty of those, but maybe when I feel able enough, I can shift my field from just firearms to possibly melee weapons. Hiding a blade on me when my hands are bound would be quieter than me summoning mine. Not to mention new powers keep popping up for me at the weirdest or crucial of times so I need various tools of destruction at my disposal in case things get hairy for me at the worst of times.

Still, while all my gear is good, The Irons Kings are a problem we may have to deal with in the future and even though they are a human enemy and alone aren't as deadly as a corrupted gem monster, but they make up for that in sheer firepower they can possess, as well as numbers. I did some digging around for them and to the police and public, they are only a minor nuisance, a small gang that apparently traffics illegal arms and weapons. That is what only the public knows, even the government. But from what I can tell, all the gear they have, the weapons, the men, even the stuff I stole that was supposed to be sent overseas to some rich person, dictates that they aren't minor and only in the US.

No, these guys are big and work in more than just one country.

With that worry hanging over me, I also decided to address the issue that my allies are not ranged combatants. They are strictly and almost entirely limited to CQB. I asked them that if we are going to fight humans in the future, I need to train them in firearms. How to clean a gun, what types, fire modes, bullets and which kind is best for what, how to hold it, cover and the different penetrating powers.

"No."

"Yeeeaaaahhh, sorry man."

Unfortunately, Garnet and Amethyst weren't to privy to using human firearms.

"You taught me how they work, now I think it's time we learn how to use them."

Fortunately, Pearl was on-board with the idea.

"Pull!"

Which leads me to today.

With a slight grunt, Garnet throws a disc of clay far off into the distance, almost a mile away. I sight in with my AS50 and lead the clay target two mil dots ahead of it. I steady my breath and squeeze the trigger.

*BANG*

The dust kicks up around my prone position, the .50 BMG round leaving the barrel of my gun with a thundering roar and heading to straight for my target. A few seconds pass as I look over at my spotter.

"It's a hit." Pearl replies while looking through some binoculars.

"Nice." I comment as I take out the 10-round box magazine and pull the bolt handle back, sending the next round that was chambered clattering to the ground. I slip the round back into the magazine before standing up. "Alright I think that's enough for today."

"You think?" Amethyst comments from nearby on the benches gesturing around us. We are standing in the arena that Pearl took us to last time she was demonstrating sword combat. We put several tables around us, some that are near the base of the stairs that leads up to the exit have various weapons on it that Pearl and I practiced with. Other tables, pillars and the surrounding floor is littered with broken clay pigeons, hole filled drink bottles and cans, and paper back shooting targets.

Overall, she excelled in dual wielding semi-automatic pistols. If she were to use one pistol, or revolver, she wouldn't do as well when compared to either using two at the same time or a two-handed weapon. She made the comment that when she was younger, around a few thousand years ago or so, she excelled at using dual straight swords before she moved onto her spear, hence the two-handed weapon action. It didn't matter if the weapon was a semi-auto, full-auto, or bolt-action, she delivered with pinpoint accuracy across all the different forms of weapons I had. She says she prefers to use semi-automatic or bolt-action weapons but it's nice to note that she can excel at using most any kind of weapon I have in my arsenal. I'll need to teach her some of the proper techniques to use when holding the weapon or how to use the gun as an effective melee tool on the fly should the need arise.

I take a look around the carnage Pearl and I did to the place. I nod, "Yeah, I think so." I look over at Garnet, "Alright Garnet, no more skeet shooting. Put the rest down the table." I say to

"Alright." She says and places the rest of the clay pigeons on the table next to her.

"You sure you two don't want to try? It's pretty fun." I try to entice Garnet and Amethyst.

"While the idea of firing these primitive gunpowder weapons aren't as appealing to me, I will admit that there is a bit of an… exhilarating feeling when it comes to firing these weapons." Pearl adds onto me.

"No." Garnet outright stands firm with her original decision.

"Sorry, bro." She lets out a loud yawn and lays on the bench. "Sounds like too much work."

"*Sigh, Of course it does." I mutter as I place my rifle down the table. "Alright Pearl." I turn to my student. "You got the firing down pretty solid. You already know the inner workings of how most firearms are so we'll move onto the next lesson: CQB. Next chance we both have free time, I'll teach you how to fight using the weapon gun you have on hand."

"Why don't I just pull out my spear?" She says and proceeds to pull out her weapon from her gem.

Before she can fully pull it out, I grab her arm with my hand and halt her from fully pulling it while also pulling out one of my new steel plated Beretta's and place it below her chin. She stares at me with surprised wide eyes while I feel the others shift in surprise as well. "That's why." I let her go and holster my pistol, making her let go of the hilt of her spear and it disappears.

"Was that necessary?" Garnet asks me uncomfortably close from behind.

"Yes," I turn back to her. "It was." I tell her firmly and take a few steps away before turning back to the two of them. "Look the two of you may not want to do this, fine." I gesture to Garnet and Amethyst, "But at least one of you does so I'm going to make sure to teach her everything I know." I turn to Pearl and walk towards her. "That action I did, if you were dealing with a human that snuck up on you or somehow got very close to you like that, then a smart or highly reflexive one would stop you from pulling out your weapon and put a round into you before you could react. Every. Second. Counts." I punctuate each of my words firmly, making sure she understands the implication of the situation if it were real. I cross my arms, "You have your area of expertise, I have mine." I gesture to our array of weapons on the table.

She nods, "I understand."

"Good, now we should-"

"Guys!" A new voice interrupts me. We all look to the source to see Steven standing at the top of the stirs that leads to the warp pad. "Could you come back to the house? We have a problem."

I look at everyone else, "We'll finish up later. Nothings grabbing my stuff from here. Let's go." I nod my head towards Steven. The others nods and we head back.

* * *

"Hnn."

"Alright. 123!" I grunt as I pull the sweater down over Greg's head until it pops out of the head hole.

"Ahhh! Thanks Marcus." He thanks me for the help.

"No problem." I reply and look at the concerned kid pacing back and forth.

"How am I supposed to choose just one of you to bring to dinner? You're all so... cool!" Steven says in slight happiness. He quickly filled us in on the situation involving Connie's parents and now he's deliberating who to take to the dinner. His dad is an obvious choice but he's kind of got three moms to deal with and all of them have there… unique personalities.

"Why does it have to be dinner?" Pearl says in a disgusted tone. "We get all the energy we need from our gems, and while our human constructs are capable of eating, I find it very uncomfortable." Pearl says uncomfortably with a slight shiver.

"I love eating!" She says with a chuckle, completely feeling the opposite of Pearl on the issue of food. "Feels weird." She then pulls out chips from a bag and proceeds to munch on them grossly.

"Okay, okay, okay. Let's focus. Which of you would make the best and most nuclear mom?" From what Steven said, nuclear family basically means a mother, father, and there kid or kids, nothing too freaky or outlandish about it. "Garnet, you keep us safe by scaring off the bad guys, just like a mom would." Steven describes Garnet. Her reply is to say nothing. "But you're not the best conversationalist."

"That's an understatement." I mutter under my breath.

"Amethyst, you would be a super fun mom!" Steven continues with his evaluation. Amethyst doesn't say a thing, only instead she proceeds to continue eating, picking her nose and drooling a little. "Can moms be gross?" Steven asks out loud.

"Why not?" She asks as she pulls out a strand of mucus from her nose, making me a little queasy.

"Pearl!" He goes on without answering the question thankfully. "You're always worried about me, you teach me lots of stuff, you're approachable, and you're, like, totally not gross." He finishes while placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Thankfully." _'Definitely wouldn't suit someone like her._ ' I say and think. Amethyst continues eating loudly and being gross in general.

"Uh…" Pearl is in the same boat as I am, what with being more than a little nauseous at the sight.

"But... you can't eat dinner." He points out her one flaw about the dinner. With a sigh, he walks away sadly and sits beside Greg on the couch. "Man, why did Connie have to say I have one mother instead of zero... or three?" He says depressingly.

"We'll figure this thing out. We just have to put our heads together." Steven's father tries to comfort his son.

"He's right." I pat the kids shoulder. "I'm sure we can figure something out." I say and begin to think. _'Okay, we need to figure out-'_

"Why didn't I think of this before? It's so obvious!" Steven interrupts my thoughts. "You can all come to dinner, all three of you, fused into one!" He proposes his idea with a snap of his finger.

"Wait, what?!" I ask in surprise. _'Is he proposing that they fuse?!'_

"What?!" Pearl exclaims loudly in surprise as well.

"Whoa!" Amethyst is the same.

"What?" Greg is only a little confused.

"Steven, you know we only fuse in deadly situations!" Pearl exclaims to the kid.

"It'd be like… like I'm actually bringing my whole family!" He tries to reason to them.

"That's insane." Amethyst bluntly says.

"Holy…" I trail off the idea. _'Last time I dealt with a fusion, the thing towered nearly the height to the beach house and nearly killed me. All three of them-?!'_ I would be lying if I said wasn't a little freaked out at the possible result.

"Fusion is serious magic, not a trick for dinner parties.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with Garnet." I hastily voice my shut down of the idea of fusing, especially since most of my experiences involved with fusion involved bodily injury.

"I know." He says sadly. "Then I guess this is it. I'll never get to see Connie again. Oh, Connie! I'll never know a star that shines as bright as you." He says in a way that I think he's intentionally getting sympathy from them… and it works as they look at him that way.

"*Sigh* We have no choice." Garnet submits.

' _Damn dude, laying on the sympathy there… and it worked… props to you.'_ The fusion thing still sits uneasy with me but I can't help but smile at the kids way of doing things. I don't know if it was a ploy to get them to fuse, or he was actually being sincere, but it worked and I'm so proud of him for the manipulation.

"Alright, now that that's settled, you got something for me?" I ask them as I sit down on the stool at the kitchen table.

"Hmmm," Steven places a hand to his chin and contemplates my role. "I know! You can be my brother!"

"What?!" We all ask in surprise, me more so as I almost fall off my seat.

"Yeah, it's perfect! You're the older brother that cares a lot about his little bro. You're always helping me out and protecting me whenever danger passes by. I'd like it if you came and pretended to be my brother." He finishes with a smile. Everyone remains silent after his short explanation, and turn to me. I stare at him for a second with my mouth agape before I chuckle. "Damn Steven." I mutter under by breath before smiling and nodding. "Alright, you got it."

"Yaaay!" He yells in happiness with his arms thrown in the air.

"By the way, when's this dinner date?" I ask him. We know where the activity is supposed to take place but not the time.

"In 30 minutes."

"What?!" I yell in surprise.

* * *

"Alright, be cool. How bad could this be?" I say to myself as I drive my car towards the dinner date. After the almost last minute notice on the time that Steven gave us, I decided to go on time to the dinner while the others get there… situation… situated and possibly stall them till they arrive. I am wearing a simple gray dress shirt for me to use on the date so I can at least be somewhat formal. I managed to stitch together my jacket together as well as taking some cloth of the same material and remaking my sleeve. The colors aren't exact to the rest but hopefully I can make it work. It isn't long until I make it to the restaurant that we will be dining at right on the dot. "Okay, this is the place." I park my truck and get out of it before heading around the back. _'Usually when it would come to me meeting the girls, the cliché would be that I'm in the relationship with the girl and I would be freaking out about meeting the girl's parents and trying to make a good first impression. I'm still freaking out a little but not as much as one would expect.'_ After walking around the place, I spot a group of three sitting on one side of a table and from the hair on the child sitting at the end, it's Connie and her parent's. _'Alright, time to make this look good.'_ I take a deep breath and walk in a dignified manner around the table. "Mr. and Mrs. Maheswaran. It's a pleasant to make your-" I stop my talking as I spot the mothers face, a very familiar one at that, and one that I am very unprepared to make the acquaintance of. "Doc! Wha-What are you doing here?!" I ask incredulously and in a voice that's slightly higher than I intended to be.

"Marcus? What are _you_ doing here?... and where are your injuries?" She asks suspiciously.

' _Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap! I was not prepared for this.'_ I think as I try to come up with a veritable response to her. "Uhhhh…"

"Wait. You two know each other?" Connie asks.

"He's my patient."

"She's my doctor."

"You're the reckless idiotic kid that fell off a cliff?!" Connie asks me in surprise while pointing at me.

"You're her mother?!" I ask in surprise as well, pointing at the doctor then to Connie. "Heeey." I say afterward in annoyance at her description of me.

"Yes, this is my daughter." Mrs. Maheswaran says firmly while placing her hand on her daughters shoulder. "And you," she points to me. "Did not answer my question. How is it that your injuries are fully healed when I diagnosed that it would take you approximately 5 months to heal?"

"Uhhh…" I draw out uneasily. My eyes glance over to Connie for a second but it's all I need to see the frantic movement for her as well. "Well… IIIII…" I draw out the I in hopes of quickly coming up with something. "I… decided that I didn't want to wait 5 months for myself to heal… sooooo I looked up various herbs, remedies, and exercises I could use and do to try to hasten the healing process." I flex my once broken arm. "Ancient techniques and healing trances used by Shaolin Monks and other tribes in and around Japan and China helped speed up the process." I completely make up what I'm saying on the spot. In plenty of movies and videos I've seen over the years, there are always those moments where people heal impossible injuries with stuff like that. I'd like to imagine that ancient stuff like that happened but she can't accurately disprove what I'm saying.

"You expect me to believe that some hocus pocus meditation sped up your recovery?" She says harshly and with arms crossed. Connie looks even more distressed at her mothers reaction.

I narrow my eyes at her. _'Alright, enough of this dog and pony crap.'_ I calmly sit down in the one of the chairs opposite of them and place my elbows on the table before crossing the fingers in front of my mouth. "Believe what you will, doctor. Fact of the matter is, I'm fit and able right now. Your work helped to set my body straight, all it took was time. My wounds are still sore and sensitive but the fact that I can walk and move around with ease proves that I did something right." I lean back and cross my arms. "I won't force you to believe what I want you to believe… just acknowledge the results." I finish saying by twirling a fork between my fingers using the arm that was once broken.

We stare at each other for a few tense moments, waiting for the other to crack, as Mr. Maheswaran looks one between us and Connie is nervously biting her nails. "Very well."

"Ohhhh!" Connie lets out a breath of relief.

"But I will be looking into this."

"I would expect nothing less from you." I say with a smile and place the fork back down.

"Now back to the other matter, what are you doing here?" She asks me. Connie gives me a questioning look as well. I know she was expecting Steven, Greg, and one of the gems but I don't think she was expecting me.

"Well, ma'am. You wanted to meet Steven's family right? Well, a part of it's here. I'm Steven's older brother."

"You are?" She asks me while Connie does the same but she mouths it.

"Yes. My parents and I felt that if you wanted to have a dinner date with Steven's family, that all of it should come by and give you a shining first impression as a family." I tell her with a smile.

"Well, the more the merrier I say. Ha ha haaa." Mr. Maheswaran voices his acceptance of my presence being here.

"Alright then. We were most interested in meeting Steven's parents but meeting all of his family is definitely an improvement." Connie's mother says. She then looks around us. "Where are they? It's been 20 minutes already and there not here."

"Well, we were going to run late if we all left at the same time, so I opted to go on ahead and keep you all company 'till the others get here."

"Let's hope they get here soon, otherwise-"

*Rumble*

The ground shakes roughly, interrupting the mothers words.

"Uh... Oh." Mr. Maheswaran says uneasily. I look at him in confusion until I follow his eyes to behind me. MY eyes widen and my mouth drops as I see a towering figure come over the mountainous rocks behind me.

"Hi, Connie! Hi Marcus! Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Maheswaran!" Steven greets us from the top of the fusions shoulder, along with Greg on the other side.

"Holy…" I breathe out as I stare at the tall multi-limbed creature lumber towards us. The fusion uses some of its hands to lower Greg and Steven to the ground.

"Thanks… honeybun…?" Greg awkwardly says to his towering… wife. _'This is… wow.'_

"You're welcome… Greg." The fusion replies somewhat hesitantly.

It takes a few seconds of awkward silence but Greg manages to get on the ball. "I'm Greg Universe. And this massive drink of water is my wife, Alexandrite." He introduces the fusion.

"Hi-i-i-i-i-i." Alexandrite says very awkwardly. I will give her credit, despite being powerful and large enough to crush my entire self with one hand, she can at least feel awkward. Dinner goes by for a few minutes until Alexandrite proceeds to start munching on 6 breadsticks at once in a crouched position.

"I hope this place has unlimited breadsticks." Mr. Maheswaran comments quietly to his wife.

"Don't be rude." His wife scolds him.

"Bleh." Alexandrite chews on the breadsticks a couple more times before sticking her tongue out in disgust, showing the chewed up breadsticks. _'Probably Pearls side there.'_

Greg chuckles nervously at the fusions action. "Isn't my wife a riot?" He finishes while he continues to chuckle nervously. ' _Can't blame him. His wife is taller than the restaurant we're eating at.'_

"So, tell me, how did you two meet?" Connie's mom asks them.

"Huh? How did we meet?" Greg says in confusion, most likely not prepared to be put on the spot like that.

' _Holy crap… is this actually working?'_ I ask in my head considering that the parents aren't really questioning the several feet tall multi-limbed creature in front of them.

"Well, we, um-"

"They met on a roller coaster!" Steven interrupts his father while standing up on his chair.

"What?" Connie and I both mouth the word to the kid.

"She was too tall to ride! Heh-heh." He makes a joke, I think, and chuckles nervously afterward while going back onto his chair. Connie shakes her head in disapproval while I slap my hand on my face.

I look up to see confused looks from the parents. "I thought I felt a fly on my face." I quickly answer.

"Uh, I remember it like it was yesterday. Right, honey?" Greg answers while chuckling and laughing nervously. He also places his hand on Alexandrite's leg but continues to laugh nervously more so. "Eh... sorry." He whispers to her while taking his hand away.

"Have some more breadsticks... dear." Her rebuttal is to make that suggestion and slam his head onto the table roughly. _'Real subtle Alexandrite.'_

"Eh-hem." Connie's dad coughs to get our attention. "Uh, what is it that you two do for a living, Mr. and Mrs. Universe?"

"Well, you see, I own a local car wash, and my sweet, dear wife here-"

"Our mom works on an apple farm!" He says while standing up again. Connie and I both sigh and slam our heads onto table at the less than awkward explanations that Steven came up with. _'I should have been there to plan for these questions.'_

"What did we say about heads on the table?" Connie's mom scolds her daughter on her action. I quickly bring mine up before she gets suspicious.

' _Wait, Connie's done this before enough times to the point she has to make a rule about it? Damn.'_ I think. I remember her telling Steven and I that her parents are strict but to make a rule on the exact action? Wow.

"She uses all her arms to pick apples out of huge trees." Steven continues to try to explain while also chuckling nervously.

"Well, you know what they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away." Greg says.

"Oh man." I mutter to myself. _'And right in 'front' of a doctor.'_

"Yes, I hate doctors." I look at Alexandrite in horror at her words.

"Well, I'm a doctor." Mrs. Maheswaran tells everyone her occupation.

"Steven, help me find the restroom!" Connie frantically asks him. He nods before heading off with Connie into the store. _'Alright, that gives us a moment of respite. Maybe I can do some triage on this mess.'_

"What is it that you do, Marcus?"

"Huh?"

"You Marcus. What is it that you do for a living? You never mentioned it when you came to visit me." Mrs. Maheswaran asks me. _'Shit! 'I' should have prepared!'_

"Well, he, uhhh-" Greg tries to come up with something.

"I go to college!" I blurt out.

"Oh! Well that's good of you." She says, satisfied with my answer. _'Okay, saved it.'_ "What particular field are you studying in?"

"Uhhhhhh," I drone out awkwardly. "Criminal Justice!" _'Holy crap that couldn't have been farther from the truth._

"Oh, Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement!" Mr. Maheswaran comments. "A good choice. You know I work as a security guard for a private security firm."

"Really?" I ask him in vague interest. I'm not overly interested really but I guess you could say I'm at least a little curious.

"Yes sir. We used to move around a lot because of it but so far this has been the longest we stayed in one place."

"Well, I'm glad you did then sir." I say with a smile.

"Where do you take your classes?" Mrs. Maheswaran asks me, continuing to drill me for info.

"Online. I have a laptop at our home so I take my classes over that when I need to." I answer.

"And it works for you?" She asks me with a raised eyebrow.

I chuckle, "Well, I've been going at it for a few years now and I'm pretty close to getting my Bachelors."

"We couldn't be more proud of him." Greg says with slightly more confidence, more than likely happy to not have the attention focused on him.

"Yes, we couldn't." Alexandrite agrees with him.

"Cah!" I gasp out roughly as my 'fusion mother' pats me on the back, which incidentally, knocks the air out of me while also slamming my chest onto the table. I try to gasp in a few breaths of air at the sudden abuse. I manage to reorient myself enough to give a fake smile to the other parents that I'm alright when in reality I'm desperately trying to suck in air. _'Oh god… hurts… hurts so much… help.'_

"You know, correct me if I'm wrong but I also find the whole brother relation between you and Steven a little far-fetched. You certainly don't look like his brother." Mrs. Maheswaran points out.

"He's adopted." Alexandrite thankfully swoops, giving the few seconds I need to properly regain my breath.

"Yep, that's it." I weakly croak out, still struggling a little with air.

"So, Steven was telling me that on his mom's apple farm, they're bioengineering a gala-fuji hybrid."

' _Thank you Connie.'_ I suck in a deep breath of air as their attention is shifted towards their daughter, completely derailing them from my 'adoption.' A waiter also comes by and places everyone's food on the table.

"Yes, that's definitely true." I hear Steven say in a somewhat annoyed manner. _'What happened while they were gone?'_ I think in confusion. He was happy and go-lucky when he left but now he seems slightly miffed.

" Isn't that right, Mrs. Universe?" Connie's mom asks Alexandrite.

"Ugh!" I look up at the fusion to see her attempting to eat some popcorn shrimp. One hand however smooshes the shrimp against her face. "What are you doing?" Another of her hands slaps herself in the face.

' _What's going on?'_ I think in confusion at her actions.

"I'm hungry!"

' _Oh, crap, the gems are fighting.'_

A second mouth appears below her face. "I don't think so. Cut it out, you two. Grrrrr-ugh!" Alexandrite proceeds to fight herself, slapping, punching and hitting herself in various ways. I lean back as she uppercuts herself and chomps on one of her hands.

"Whoa! Watch it!" I cry out as their almost start to stand, their leg almost hitting me.

"Stop! You don't have to eat it!" Steven tells her in hopes to stop her fighting. Alexandrite starts moaning at the news and her face begins to crack. I hear everyone gasps as she breaks apart and unfuses in a flash. Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl are dropped from the same height as Alexandrite and hit the ground roughly.

"Guys!" I cry out and jump out of my chair towards them.

"Steven!" Before I can check to see if they are alright, Pearl cries out and begins crawling towards the kid. "Ohh. Thank you so much. You don't know how horrified I was when that dreck nearly fell into our mouths." She begins to explain in utter horror, to her standards at least, on the situation. "Eating food is so disgusting! You chew it into nasty mush, swallow that goop, and it comes out of you? What a completely horrid experience!" She finishes her hysterical rant.

"Uh, speak for yourself." Amethyst puts in her two cents on the issue as she walks up to Pearl. "Ha! I love it when mush passes through my body." She says happily.

"It doesn't matter what you two think. We're doing this for Steven!" Garnet scolds the two as she summons her gauntlets and hits them both on the head.

"Ah!" The two cry out in pain.

"What is going on here? Who are they?!" Connie's dad yells out.

"Oh crap. This isn't good." I mutter myself. _'Things were going surprisingly good but now… crap.'_ I sigh as I run my hand through my hair.

"I knew I should have trusted my bad feelings about this new friend of yours, but I never thought I wouldn't be able to trust my own daughter." Connie's mom scolds her, much to the horror of the kid. She runs off crying with Steven behind her.

"Connie!" He cries out as he runs after her.

"Connie!" I yell after her and I go to chase after her but my foot gets caught on my chair, making me tumble to the ground. "Oof!" I grunt as I land on my chest. However to my horror, I watch as one of my pistols goes sliding out from under me. "Shit!" I curse as I roll forward in an attempt to grab my gun before the parents can see it. I quickly holster it subtly before turning back to see the gems continue to argue and the Maheswarans… staring at me. _'Crap.'_

"What are you doing with that?!" Mrs. Maheswaran yells to me.

"Do you have a permit for that?!" Mr. Maheswaran yells in an equally high and slightly surprised voice as the two of them almost advance on me.

"Uhh…" I groan, not knowing what to say after being put on the spot like this. _'Damn, now I know how you feel Greg.'_ Before I can, try to reason to them, I hear a bus leave. Looking up the hill to the bus stop, I see a bus leaving with- "Steven! Connie!" I yell out as I spot the two of them leave on the bus. I look back to see the parents are focused on their daughter, the others are still arguing and Greg is quietly eating his food. "Guys!" I yell to the others and jog up to them.

"I for one will not partake in that disgusting action!"

"Who asked you too-!"

"HEY!" They finally stop arguing to look at me for my raised voice. "Steven and Connie left." I calmly tell them.

"What?!" All three gems say in surprise.

"Yeah, they hopped on a bus and took off." I inform them. The three of them look at each other while I turn back. "I'll head them off in my car and bring them back." I say out loud and start moving to my parked car. _'I don't know what you two are doing, but I don't think it was a well thought out-'_

"STEVEN!"

"Whoa!" I duck to the side at the loud booming voice and thudding steps. Alexandrite barrels past me and over the restaurant before heading down the road. "Plan." I finish my thought from earlier. _'This won't end well.'_

* * *

"I don't even know where to begin with you, young la-"

"What were you thinking, running off with Connie like that?" Pearls outburst interrupts Connie's mom from scolding her. "You could have gotten yourselves hurt!"

"Or gotten mangled in traffic." Garnet says.

"Or thrown in prison." Amethyst says as well.

"Or lost." I add, kind of as a means to lessen the consequences of his actions.

"Steven, you are in very big trouble, and we have no choice but to punish you." Pearl tells the kid.

"But…" He begs but only for a second before they tell him his punishment

"No dinner for 1,000 years."

"What?!" I ask in surprise at the punishment. _'I know the gems don't eat but they can't do that to Steven!'_

"1,000?" He says with a sad expression, for some reason not at all angry or freaked out at the implication of not eating.

"We would never starve you, but you will lose your TV privileges... for 1,000 years." Pearl changes the punishment for something a bit more… lenient with a smile.

' _Oh, okay. That's a somewhat better punish-'_

"No!" Steven cries out in horror. "The midseason pre-finale of 'Under the Knife!' How can you do this to me?!" He cries slightly.

' _Okay, I guess he's not as enthusiastic about the different punishment.'_

"Because we love you, Steven." Greg tells the kid while giving him a disapproving look.

"Uhhhhhhh…" Steven groans out.

"Ahhh, no worries Steven. 1,000 years will go by just like that. *Snap*" I snap my fingers in tandem with the last word.

"You think?" He asks with slight hope plastered on his face.

I stare at him for a few moments before answering, "Suuuuurrrrree." I draw out the word both to maybe reassure him, but also because of my unsureness. I give a subtle head shake 'no' to no one in particular. He goes back to being depressed.

"Wow." The angry ready-to-discipline-mother from before comes up to us. "That was a masterful use of the 'because we love you' shutdown. I'm quite partial to the 'It's for your own good' myself." She says to them gems in a slightly upbeat attitude.

' _Huh, guess they found common ground.'_ I think as I scratch my head at the bonding I'm seeing.

"That '1,000 years of no dinner' bit ha ha haaa was pretty funny." Connie's dad proceeds to talk to Garnet about the whole thing while also laughing.

"All comedy is derived from fear."

"… You know, there is some truth to that." I say to myself at Garnets statement. Usually there are many types of jokes out there but scaring the hell out of someone and freaking them out are prime ways to do it.

Mr. Maheswaran decides to laugh off Garnets apparent joking manner when in reality she's kind of freaky right now. "You are too much."

"I did not know what to make of the two of- excuse me, four of you, but I see that you are responsible parents. Uh, caregivers? Guardians." Connie's mom is a little confused at the title she was to give to the gems but is satisfied with the Guardian title.

"Sounds about right." I say with a nod. Not just a guardian for young Steven, but also guardians of the earth itself. _'It's a fitting title.'_

"So, I can still hang out with Steven?" Connie asks her mother hopefully.

"Sure." Her mom answers.

"Yeah." I lightly pump my fist in happiness at the answer. _'I'm happy with that. Despite still being younger than me, she's still awesome to have around.'_

"Alright!" Steven says loudly with elated happiness. He laughs as he goes over and hugs Connie. Her response to his affection is to chuckle nervously at the contact along with a large blush on her face.

"Uh!" Both of Connie's parents say disgusted at the scene. Mr. Maheswaran grunts as he walks over to the two and separates Steven and Connie with a satisfied look on his face. I chuckle at the mans action.

"You never did answer my question." I turn to Mrs. Maheswaran who walks up to me. "You have a permit for that weapon?" She nods to the concealed weapon in my jacket.

"Yes, I do ma'am. It's not on me right now but I do have it." I lie to her. While the others begin to converse with each other, I lead her a little bit away and speak in a low tone. "Please don't think anything bad of me because I have this. There's a reason why I'm adopted ma'am." I tell her lowly. Surprise and slight horror adorns her face but I calm her down. "I've made my peace with it. I won't let it weigh my life down to nothing," I look over to the gems and Greg, "But I will not let my new family be taken from me…" I glance over at Connie, "Or my friends. You have nothing to worry about with me." I tell her firmly. The whole thing was a half lie. My parents are whole other matter but it's my friends that I was mostly thinking of and will not let a repeat of what happened.

She stares at me for a few seconds, examining me for her to think of a valid reason to doubt me. She soon looks to her daughter and after a few seconds of watching her and Steven laugh, she turns back to me before nodding.

"Thank you." I thank her before walking over to everyone else. "Alright guys. I think this dinner party has gone on long enough and I think we've all been properly acquainted with each other." I announce and walk over to my family, while the others do the same. Soon both family's are standing next to their respective members. "It's been a pleasure meeting with you all." I say to the Maheswarans.

"The pleasure was ours." Connie's dad replies and we shake hands. "This was an interesting dinner that's for sure."

Everyone else wishes each other well wishes before saying our goodbyes.

"C'mon, I'll drive everyone home." I say to them and they follow me to the parking lot.

"Bye Connie!" Steven wishes Connie goodbye one last time.

"Bye Steven!" She replies and heads off with her family.

Soon we all pile into my truck. It's a tight fit but before long we start driving home. "By the way, what happened when you three took off after Steven and Connie?" I ask them through the rearview mirror while they all sit in the back seat. Steven and his dad are sitting up front with me.

"Well, they, uhhh…"

"We picked up the bus they were in and threatened them to get out." Garnet answers bluntly, interrupting Steven's uneasiness.

"Real subtle guys." I comment.

"Hm, when aren't they." Greg adds as well. Thinking back on it, after everything I've been through with them, all the adventures, the pain and interesting nature of how everything went, I chuckle.

"Ha ha ha… true."

 **Alright, well this all looks good. Turns out the Battlefield 1 campaign wasn't as numerous as I thought it was. Some of my free time will be occupied with trying to get higher ranks in multiplayer so I can unlock new weapons and equipment but hopefully my writing schedule will remain uninterrupted.**

 **Maybe… I have friends who play this game so when we all play it together, time kind of gets away from us. I'm trying to get to rank 10 for my assault class so I can get access to the No.3 Revolver so I can use it with all classes but I'm only half way there. My favorite class is the scout and you would be surprised at how much I can wreck with a bolt-action rifle, or in this case a lever-action as well.**

 **Also, don't quote me on Connie's dad's job. The Wiki and the show says he's a private security guard so I just made the assumption there.**

 **Either way, things are hopefully looking good and I hope you guys continue to like my work.**

 **Also, I'm not going to do 'Garnet's Universe' because that's an interpreted story episode, so expect some watermelon action next.**

 **And I have to be honest with you guys… expect things to get a little… crazy… and fun with the watermelons. Well, to me at least.**

 **As always, have a great day and have fun reading.**


	25. 23 Watermelon Steven

Some time has passed. After the whole fusion dinner date thing, Connie's parents lived up to their agreement so Connie was able to hang out with us. She even mentioned that her parents told her to be very careful around me and to keep an eye out for anything suspicious I might be doing. Of course she said she wasn't going to rat me out to my illegal possession of multiple illegally gotten firearms, creating explosives, the pile of money I have lying around, and even my vehicles. She's awesome to have around and of course she's really smart so it's nice to have a human with intelligence on par with me and the gems. I like Steven but he's not exactly Harvard smart and the gems… their lack of full comprehension of human culture and our very nature kind of lets their intelligence be a bit confusing when it comes to comparing to humans. I already went to the mayor and asked for a permit to build my house on top of the cliff but a fair distance away from the lighthouse. The reason for that is because I'm still close to the gems in case something happens, I have a wide-open range for me to keep watch of pretty much everything; the city and I can see for miles in the oceans direction as well. Plus the isolation ensures I can work on whatever I want without interruption, and the thickness of the cliff mountain ensures that if I want, I could build a very large basement or underground complex for me to work in peace.

I mean I could have built my house on the beach in front of Steven's home but the loose sand and water means my foundation would be crap; It could shift, water damage could be an issue, potential waves and so on and so forth.

Of course, the mayor wasn't to privy to the permit at first but after dropping a few thousand dollars worth of… *Ahem* Campaign donations for his re-election, he agreed to write it out.

My next plan is to find a reputable construction company to build the house firmly in place so I can move in. After that, I'll start making the modifications myself to whatever else I feel like. To be honest, I'm glad to finally have my own place because the couch is starting to mess up my back a little and I feel bad mooching off of Steven like that, especially when he gives me his bed when I get too banged up.

Now however… we're dealing with something a little different.

"Whaaaaa…?" I say in confusion at the sight in front of me. Now I don't know about you, I mean I like watermelon more than the next guy… but this is ridiculous.

"Hmm. This is really impressive." Garnet comments next to me.

"I suppose..." Pearl says as well, commenting on the large patch of watermelon-shaped Steven's littering the entire concrete ground on and around Greg's car wash. "Your mother had the power to grow sentient plant life to act as her defenders." She tells Steven.

"Seriously?" I ask her incredulously. Her and Garnet nod yes. "Dang, Steven. Your mom was a hell of woman." I lean down and pick up one of the watermelons. "Healing tears, General of the Crystal Gem army, and now the ability to make her own literal expendable army at a moment's notice… wow." I voice my awe at the set of ability's. My mom was pretty powerful but man did Rose have it going for herself as well.

"But Rose's plants moved and stuff." Amethyst comments. "These guys don't do... anything." She says as she picks up a smaller melon Steven when compared to the rest. _'Looks like it isn't ripe yet.'_

"Amethyst, be careful. This one's just a baby." He tells her as he takes the watermelon away from her before cuddling it. "Aww! Look at him, so precious."

"Ugh..." I look over to hear Greg groan as he steps on a Watermelon Steven.

"You okay Greg?" I ask him

"Yeah, ohh... This is really weird." He says.

"No kidding." I say out loud, agreeing with him as I navigate my way around the melons, not to privy to stepping on one as well. Who knows, if these things end up coming to life, I don't exactly want to piss them off.

"What are we gonna do with all of them?" He asks.

Steven lets out a gasp, an idea forming in his head. "I've got it!" He proclaims happily.

"Pardon?" I ask confused.

* * *

Unfortunately, he proceeded to be very vague on the subject and decided to just pick up his creations. After Steven left with his watermelons to do… whatever it is he wanted to do with them that involved him wearing a mock farmers outfit, I decided to go back and do a more routine examination of the inside of my new GT Falcon muscle car to make sure it's working right and has everything in order. The inside where people sit is pretty nice, leather interior, manual gear shifter, lead based windows, and a more modernized radio set. Whoever this was for, this is a custom job. "Alright, the inside looks good. Now for the engine." I pop the hood open from inside the car and head to the front. With a grunt, I open the hood and stare at the engine. The whole set-up doesn't look used barely at all however albeit a bit sloppily put together. The engine block is something I would expect for the car itself but I'm sure I can upgrade this thing with a more powerful engine. "Damn. I thought this thing felt weird when I was driving home." I comment as I notice some parts do seem a little loose. Holding the hood up with one hand, I reach down and pull out a wrench from a toolbox and begin tightening what I can.

"Whoa!"

*Smack* "Oooowwww!" I groan out as my head hits the top of the hood in surprise. With a low growl, I lean back and see who it was that caused me to almost get a concussion. "Jenny? Buck? Sour Cream?"

"Marcus… hey… I uhhhh… just wanted to come by and see how you were doing. Last time we met it wasn't exactly on a positive note." Jenny tells me. I watch as she and the others examine my car.

"He looks like he's doing very well." Buck says as he walks along the left side of my car.

"Yeah man." Sour Cream adds as he goes long the opposite side of my car from Buck. "Nice ride."

"Thanks." I reply and slam the hood closed. "As you may tell, it's new so I still need to change things out and make sure it's working right. I was just looking at the engine and it looked a little… loose." I struggle with the word to describe the engine. Seriously when I was driving back the thing shook a little more than I liked. I don't know if it was a stray bullet, something I ran over, or the loaded up trailer I was pulling but I was still iffy about the thing. "I'm thinking of upgrading the engine to something with a bit more power."

"Nice." Sour Cream says.

"Where'd you get it?"

"W-What?" I stutter in confusion for a second at Buck's question.

"This car. Where'd you get? The dealer in town doesn't have anything like this and this seems too high-end for anything a local car dealer would have." He explains as he peers through the window and examines the interior.

"Yeah. Where'd you get it?... And where can I get one?" Sour Cream asks. Jenny looks to me in curiosity as well.

' _Fuck… I wasn't expecting to be drilled for questions so soon on my new stuff. Crap… think, think, think. Ah!'_ "My uncle." I answer simply as to not arouse suspicion.

"Your uncle got you this?" Jenny asks me.

I nod. "Yeah, my uncle is sort of a big-shot over seas so when he decided to upgrade to a sports car, he went ahead and sent this to me as a somewhat hand-me-down." I lie to them. It's not like I can go ahead and tell them that I stole this thing from a somewhat secret criminal organization that wants to kidnap me.

That's not right.

Besides, I haven't seen my uncle since I left home so I have no idea if he is still rich. Well, not rich per say but I do know he was quite wealthy that he could buy quite a lot of things. _'Never did find out about his job though.'_

"Some hand-me-down." Buck comments, obviously this isn't the type of thing you just give to a person… but depending on the situation will it happen… like driving it out of burning building… that you caused… yeah.

"Lucky." Sour Cream lightly pouts. "Can we get in?" I beep the car open with my keys. "Woo-hoo!" He casually yells happily as he gets in through the passenger door while Buck does the same with the driver.

"So, how have 'you' been?" Jenny asks me with a smile. I give her a tired smile as I sit down on the edge of the hood. She joins me.

"Well, my injuries weren't as severe as first believed so I'm out of the cast early." I say as I flex my once broken arm.

"I'll say."

"Yeah… there have also been some… other complications that arose since we last talked." I say. I'm not going to tell her everything but I need to tell her something. Otherwise I could come out as one of those jackass friends who keeps deep secrets from his friends, which leads them to resent each other and possibly broken friendship. I may not be as social but I should at least try to keep some friends.

"What kind of problems?" She asks.

"Some things from my past caught up to me and guys are looking to collect."

"Collect?"

"Yeah, some guys want something from me and they are pissed about it." I half tell her the truth. I mean, the guys do want something from me, which is me, so I'm not exactly telling her a lie right now.

"Anything I can do to help?" She asks me sincerely and scoots a little closer.

"Sorry Jenny." I shake my head no and lean back on the hood, arms crossed behind my head and staring into the sky. "These guys aren't looking for money, at least not anymore. So I need to figure out how to get… whatever it is they want, to them so they can leave me alone." I let out a sigh to seal the sort of frustrated state I'm in. I'm both being truthful at how annoyed I am at the situation, and maybe exaggerating a little but still. "Otherwise they'll want to take it out of me… through lots of pain." I grimly say, which probably isn't far off if I was captured by the man that wants me.

"Oh wow." She gasps out. "Well, if you need anything, you know I'm here for you if you need it." She offers to me as she places her hand on my leg.

"Hm, thanks Jenny." I reply with a smile and place my hand on top of hers and grip it lightly. "I appreciate."

' _I know I'm gonna need it.'_ I think. We stay like that for a bit, silence taking over as we remain in our positions.

*HONK!*

"FUCK!" I curse loudly and roll of the side of the car.

"AH!" Jenny yelps out as she jumps off the hood.

With a small groan, I get to my feet and look at the jackasses sitting in my car. I give them a cross look as they look innocently at us. "Alright you two. Enough gawking." I tell them firmly and open the door for Buck to get out. He has a smug look on his face and Sour Cream isn't even trying to remain subtle.

"Oh man! You two should have seen the look on your faces!" He manages to say through his laughing and tears in his eyes. Jenny chuckles at her friend's antics and playfully punches Sour Creams shoulder.

"Ha ha, yes, yes. It was all well and fun. Now get going." I reach in and pop the hood open again. "I'd love to hang but I've got to get this thing squared away ASAP before anything too major comes out that would cost me a pretty penny." I explain a reason for them to go as I pull the hood open.

"Alright, well, it was fun seeing you again, Marcus. We'll catch you later." Sour Cream tells me and begins to walk away.

"Don't be a stranger." Buck adds and follows his friend.

"I'll try." I reply and look back to the engine.

"Remember," Jenny leans next to me, "If you need anything, I'm here for you." She tells me sincerely.

"I wouldn't expect anything less Jenny." I reply in the same tone.

"Jenny! Let's go!" Buck calls back to her.

"Coming!" She replies back before looking to me. "See you later." She says to me and jogs off to the others.

"See ya." I reply and head back to examining my ride. _'That was nice… but back to business.'_

* * *

After around half-an-hour or so, I hear the pitter patter of footsteps on the sand. Looking up for a second, I spot Steven heading for the temple. "Hm, what's got him in a hurry?" I ask myself. With a shrug, I go back to doing my examination of the engine. Unfortunately, the hood doesn't lock up or have a stand to keep it from falling down so I still have to use one hand to keep the hood up and another to do the tightening. "Dang it." I grunt as the deeper parts start to get a little bit darker and I can't properly examine it. "Can't see… need more light." I say to myself.

Suddenly a shine of blue light illuminates the dark area I was looking in.

"Thanks." I say and tighten another bolt. "There." I say happily at getting the piece. "Wait…" I also say in confusion at the sudden shine of light. I look to my left and see something peculiar.

A watermelon Steven sits on the edge of the engine with one of its stubby hands holding a flashlight on the dark area.

We stare at each other for a few moments in silence.

*Blink*

"Oh god!" I cry out as the thing blinks at me, causing me to fall back away from it.

*SLAM*

"Oh fuck!" I curse loudly. Unfortunately, when I fell back in surprise, my grip on the hood fell down hard, right on the watermelon. I jump to my feet and grab the edge of the hood before flinging it open. "Uuuuhh…" I groan out as I see the smashed watermelon lining the entirety of my engine block. "Oh… crap this is… Ahhhh…" I hiss at seeing all the gunky pieces dripping and falling into the nooks and crannies of the engine block. "Ew." I comment as I start pulling chunks out of my engine. The pieces are everywhere and I already see a lot of the juices starting to seep to the bottom. "Damnit." I curse as I crouch down to the ground while lowering the hood as well, examining the sand already starting to become wet from the juices. "Man, if there was any need before for a new engine, now I definitely do." _'I can't imagine how these juices would affect the engine… especially if they get into anything requiring any sort of liquid to function.'_

"Wait, what's that?" I mumble as I spot something else. On the other side of my car, I spot some small bumps of green surrounding my car from the outside. "What the- Huh?" I start to question what it is I see but suddenly the hood leaves my hand, like its being pulled up. I stand up and flinch as I spot two more watermelon Stevens on either side of the hood, holding it up. _'Holy crap… they are alive.'_ I think as I watch them watch me. I hear more footsteps and see even more watermelons walk out from behind the sides of my car. I take a few steps back in uneasiness at seeing the sheer number of the watermelons beginning to appear. The melons under my hood let it go and the hood slams shut, revealing a few more that were standing on top of the hood itself as well as the roof of my car. I take a few more tense steps back. I go to run and maybe get some help but I stop as I notice a literal army of watermelon Steven's is completely surrounding me. I look around in haste and ragged breathing as I take stock of just how many melons there are around me and slowly advancing on me.

I also can't help but notice the stickiness of the watermelon that was crushed under my hood on my fingers. _'Crap… they did come to life…'_ They get into battle-ready stances, prompting me to materialize my swords. _'And I pissed them off.'_

* * *

"Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst!" Steven yells as he runs into the house after seeing the gems chilling out on the couch.

"What?" All three of them ask at the same time, oblivious to the situation transpiring outside.

"My watermelons came to life, and they're attacking people!" He yells out frantically.

"What!?" They all ask in surprise at the news. They gasp in amazement as they walk outside and see the crowd of Watermelon Stevens and even some congregating around Marcus's car.

"Wooow..." Amethyst says in awe at the sheer number of watermelons. There's so many that not all of them even fit on beach itself. Some are seen disappearing past the rocks around them and others are floating in the water.

"You said they're hurting people?" Pearl asks Steven. He nods with a worried look at the news.

"Rose's plants lived to fight." Garnet explains grimly.

"He can't control them." Pearl deduces what's going on. "Steven-" Pearl begins to say as she places her hands on Steven's shoulders but stops as the Watermelon Steven's take a step forward, looking angry. She lets him go, prompting the melons to back off.

"They respond to Steven being touched. To protect him." Pearl manages to deduce. "Maybe we can-"

"Look!" She begins to explain a plan to the others but is interrupted by Garnet.

Everyone looks to Marcus's car and see a large group of them huddled together. Before anyone can question why, the answer is revealed as in a grunt of rage, Marcus blasts the melons that were on him off.

"Marcus!" Everyone yells their friends name. They hear his grunts of exertion as he twists and turns in various directions, slicing and dicing the melons trying to dog pile him with his swords.

"We have to help." Garnet says and prepares to jump to their ally.

"Wait!" Pearl immediately stops the gems from jumping.

"What?! Why?!" Amethyst cries out at her partners action.

Pearl stares at the large army of melon warriors and the ease that Marcus looks to being overrun by them. "I have an idea." She tells them, much to Steven's worry.

* * *

"Argh! Rah!" I yell out as a couple more of the melons try to jump me but I throw them off and slice them in half. "Damnit." I grunt out as more get ready to advance on me. _'Great, I've barely fought them and already I'm starting to feel tired. My swords are starting to get coated in the sticky juices and they're starting to stick in them.'_ I think as three of them get ready to jump into the air. _'Where are you guys?'_ I think, wondering where the other gems are at this point and how I could really use their help. They jump into the air and I get ready to hit them back.

*BANG*

A loud sound pierces the sound barrier and immediately after, the three melons splatter into a million pieces. "Wha-?!"

Before I can question anyone, some explosions happen around me, blowing up more of the melons that were too close for comfort, making me fall to the ground in a crouch to protect myself from the danger-close explosion. Rough thuds fall next to me, making me look up as I spot Garnet and Amethyst standing there. "'Sup." Amethyst says coolly as she and Garnet hold a crate of some kind.

"Hey." I answer back as I stand up and walk closer to them. "Glad you could join me. What's in the box?" I nod to the crate.

"Presents for you." Garnet answers as both of them place the crate down. The rattling sound is weird at first but as I peer inside, my eyes widen as I see over a dozen of my weapons inside of it.

"What?! But-!" I sputter in surprise.

"Pearl thought these would be useful." Garnet tells me with a smile. I look bewildered for a second but I let out a breathless laugh as twirl my swords a bit before I stab them into the sand and look at the guns more closely.

"Of course she did." I say with a smile. _'She's a gem… wait, that metaphor doesn't work as good because she literally is a gem… She's awesome. Yeah, that'll suffice.'_ I tear myself from my thoughts so I could look at them again. "So where is she?"

"She's-"

*BANG*

Another shot rings out past me, prompting me to look back to see a broken melon a few feet from me.

"She's around." Garnet says smugly.

* * *

"Wow!" Pearl yells out in exhilaration. "This is nice." She comments as she stares through the scope of the Dragonov SVD she's using from atop one of the hands on the statue she's lying down on. She looks through the scope after making her three-in-one takedown. She steady's her breathing, just like how Marcus taught her, and takes aim at another melon advancing behind him.

*BANG*

She squeezes the trigger, not jerk it, and the round left the barrel taking out her target, much to the guys surprise as he looks to the body and back. "That training really did pay off."

* * *

"Get ready." Garnet tells us. The two of them go back to back and I pull out the Mossberg from inside the crate before going into a three person back-to-back formation with them. We tense up as they pull out there weapons and finish loading the last set of shells into shotgun. I glaze my sights along and around the melons advancing forth on us, getting ready to fight and not even deterred of the fact that I now have backup. "Gems," We freeze at her voice. "Do your thing."

*Chu-chik*

I cock the shotgun as the others jump away from me and I squeeze the trigger. With a thundering 'boom', the weapon discharges, sending pellets through three melons, destroying them. More of the melons advance on me but I continue to rinse, repeat my actions. _'Squeeze the trigger, cock it, aim, squeeze, cock it, aim, squeeze.'_ Time seems to slow for me as I continue to move around slowly, firing then cocking the gun repeatedly, spent shell casings falling to the sand as fire and metal pour out of the barrel. When I fire the last shell in my gun, I flip the gun around in my hands and grab the barrel with both hands. I don't flinch as the hot metal slightly stings but I ignore it as I bring the gun back and smack two more melons away in a spray of watermelon juices like a baseball bat. With the momentary pause, I drop the gun on the ground and move over to the crate and look inside of it, pulling out my next weapon: The M240L machine gun. The weapon is a pretty powerful LMG to use and more often than not it would be required to use as a stationary gun supported by the ground using the bipod.

But I'm not like most people.

Grabbing the handle and trigger with my right hand, I grab one of the legs of the bipod to steady myself and fire.

The recoil is immense but I hold firm as I spray the melons around me. I grit my teeth at the vibration pulsing through my entire body from the machine in my hands but I refuse to let up. The melons try to rush me from various directions but I manage to spray them down, their remains littering the sand around me. This would definitely be a bit more gruesome and messed up if I was actually fighting people but thankfully, I'm not. _'This is too easy.'_ I think with a smile as I twist myself around and spray another group.

*Shink*

"What?!" I gasp in surprise as something slices through half my weapon. Another shot rings out as the melon next to me explodes, dropping my weapon in the process as well. "You took my-?! Damnit!" I curse at the implication that one of these guys actually picked up one of my swords. "Hold on." I think as I look back to the crate and see them trying to lug one of my assault rifles out. "Hey!" I yell, grabbing their attention. I quickly chuck my destroyed M240 at them, knocking them away. I sprint to my guns and grab the assault rifle they were trying to pull out. It was the Tavor so I immediately spray them into oblivion. Once their down, I switch to single-fire and start popping more of them. Once I'm out, I put it back in the crate and pull out a couple of Glocks set to full auto with large extended magazines. Normally I would find a good weapon and stick with it but I don't have many magazines for these guns, only cases of ammo so the only gun I could reload quickly would be a shotgun.

I hear more shots ring out around me from Pearls sniping as well as Garnet and Amethyst's fighting. I waste no time and extend both my arms and spray more of them down around me. I twirl myself around as I continue to shoot many more of them, suppressing them to the point that they can't advance on me but I quickly start to run out of ammo for my SMG's. _'Crap. I need some backup here.'_

*Click*

"Aw man." I groan out as both my pistols click empty. I twist around and pistol whip a couple more of them trying to tackle me. More of them continue to advance on me and my breath is starting to turn ragged. "Great."

"Marcus!" I look towards the direction of where my name came from and I catch something that was thrown at me. It was the SPAS-12 and I see Pearl standing next to the crate of weapons with my previous discarded Mossberg in her hand. "Thought you could use some help." She says with a smile.

"Pearl…" I say her name with a smile. Her smile fade as she gets an alarmed look on her face as she stares above me. Not wasting the moment, I roll forward towards her as the spot I was standing on explodes into a cloud of dust. Turning around, I see it was a group of the melons trying to tackle me from the sky. I aim my shotgun at them as Pearl and I go back-to-back with our respective weapons. We aim our guns around at more of them as they continue to advance, what seems like an infinite number of them that doesn't let up. "Thanks for coming." I tell her.

"No problem."

"Why did you leave your sniper nest?" I ask her curiously.

"I was out of ammo." She answers simply.

"That's it?" I ask her with a sideways glance.

"Yes, that's it." She reply's with a smug smile.

"Right."

"Enough talk, it seems their getting antsy." She stops our playful banter, reorienting our train of thoughts at the growing number of enemy's around us.

"Yes, they are." I say finally and hold the shotgun firmly against my shoulder. "Shall we?"

"We shall."

*Boom!*

In sync, we both squeeze the triggers of our guns, the vibration passing through each of us from the force of the discharges.

Like a deadly dance of fire and metal, we slowly move around each other in circle, picking off more and more of the melons as they try to advance on us but the sheer number of pellets we sling halts their advance.

*Click*

"I'm out!"

*Click*

"Me too!"

"Reload!"

"Cover me!"

Without missing a beat, I hand my shotgun to Pearl as I grab the KRISS Vector and cover her. The Vector has foldable stock, 4x Acog scope, silencer, a fore grip for me to use and extended magazines. This version of the weapon also fires .45 ACP rounds so unlike the 9mm, the rounds hit with slightly more force and it's another gun that I find awesome and personally like. Hitting the full-auto, I get to work as usual. The hair trigger attachment set on this thing, along with the low recoil, the grip and my strength, ensures that I place accurate and devastating bursts of bullets into the melons, my vision snapping left, right and behind me in all directions and even over Pearl as she remains crouched on the ground, reloading our weapons.

"Done!" With Pearls declaration, I place the Vector in the crate and grab the shotgun before we go back-to-back again. "I also gave you something extra." She says.

"Oh really? Well, let's see." I shoulder my shotgun and fire. To my surprise, instead of pellets or a slug, what comes out is a literal blast of fire that cooks a large portion of the melons, almost disintegrating even. "Dragon's breath… nice."

"I thought you would like it." She replies and we fire again. Her Mossberg continues to hold the standard type of shotgun shells while mine hold the fiery dragons breath shotgun shells that make the shotgun a mini flamethrower with each trigger pull. After awhile everything seems to be going well as we continue to hold them back, but there's only so much ammo in a shotgun.

"I'm out!" I call to Pearl.

"Alright, give it here and I'll- Oof!"

"Pearl!" I call out her name in surprise as she is tackled away from me, dropping her shotgun in the process. I'm about to go after her but she is pushed out of my area and into another while a few more of the melons tackles towards me. I roll out of the way of them as they crash into the crate, tearing my SPAs-12 from my hands and sending all my other weapons spread into the sand. "Damnit!" I curse and grab a magazine for my Vector before reloading it. I quickly grab it with my right hand before grabbing one of my swords in my left hand and running. I switch the gun to single-fire and fold the stock for me to hold it better in one hand. I slice through a few melons before kicking more of them away and bashing more of them away. _'Damn… I need to get to higher ground.'_ I quickly look past all the melons surrounding me for anything that I can use to get above them. My eyes land on the hardtop roof of my car. _'That'll do.'_ With a grunt, I slice through more of the melons as I make my way to my destination. I shoot a couple of the melons off my car before stepping onto the hood and stepping onto the roof. I quickly get a view of the entire area and spot Garnet being dog piled by a large group of the melons, Amethyst is being buried, and Pearl is wrestling with some of them over her spear. The melons start to clamber around my car and proceed to climb up to me but start placing rounds into them with my Vector in one hand and slicing the tops off of others with my sword. It's rinse repeat at this point but I'm starting to see the futility of the situation as they continue to gain ground on me.

*Click*

"Crap." I say in vain and drop my gun before gripping my sword in both hands as I watch my opponents slowly climb up like a horde of zombies. "C'mon! C'MON!" I yell in defiance at my enemies and bring my sword up, prepared to strike.

Suddenly they freeze and look elsewhere, completely ignoring me. "Huh?" I say in confusion at their action. Following their line of sight, I see several of them fly into the air and fall to the ground like missiles to their target. I spot Steven standing in the general direction of where they're going but looking closely, it's not him they're going for but another melon. Looking closely, I see the melon in question is actually the 'baby melon' that Steven first picked up when we found them. He's standing there with his arms stretched out and eyes closed, almost like he's waiting for something. "What is he-?" Before I can finish, the melons land on the baby one, completely smashing the ground hard as sand is kicked up into a smoke cloud. The ones around me leave and start shuffling to the site. I spot the others untangling themselves and Steven starts pushing through the crowd of melons before going into the wide open area where the remains of baby melon are. Jumping onto the ground, I grab my Vector and strap it to my back before heading to Steven as well. I gently push past the melons as I catch the end of what Steven's saying when he starts walking to the remains.

"I understand... You stopped the watermelons from fighting everyone else... by making them fight you." He says somberly.

' _Wait, that's what baby melon did?'_ I think in surprise. Whatever it was that he did, it was enough to completely shift their attention from the gems and I to him. Steven bands down and holds the remains up for the other watermelons to see, anger plastered heavily on his face.

"Look at what you've done!" He yells. "You think I wanted this?! You should all be ashamed! He knew this is what it would take to calm your rage! ... He understood true loyalty." He says the last part lowly but I manage to pick it up.

With the momentary silence following soon after his anger, I can't help but look around at the carnage that I mostly wrought on everyone; the bullet ridden bodies of the melons littering the sand and even plenty of crabs, seagulls and whatever else type of animal starts to pick apart the aftermath. _'Oooooh… okay, I may have gone a little overboard as well.'_ I can't help but think.

"Go!" Steven's outburst knocks me from my thoughts. "Think about what you've done! And don't come back until you understand what he did for me, for all of us!" He yells to them all. The melons are still for a second until they understand and start walking away. I walk over to Steven as I see the Watermelon Stevens walking away while taking different paths, some into the ocean and on land. One unfortunate soul is grabbed by a passing seagull and taken away, not really looking all that panicked about being carried away.

"Spoken like a true king." Garnet says next to Steven and I with Pearl and Amethyst coming up.

"They don't need a king. They're their own melons now."

"Nice words man." I compliment the kid with single pat to his shoulder. Pearl and Amethyst proudly place a hand on Steven's shoulders as well, smiling at his maturity and handling on the situation. _'He never ceases to amaze me. He'll be an awesome gem fighter one da-'_ My thoughts are interrupted as munching breaks through the silence around us. Looking down, I see Steven silently munching on Baby Melon's remains. Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet frown, glancing at Steven while I look slightly freaked out. _'Would that somewhat fall under cannibalism?'_ I shake my head of the scene and look back to the spread of weapons around the area. "Ahhhhh… I got carried away." I say out loud.

"You think?" Amethyst asks rhetorically.

"Yep." I say in a tired tone. After glancing carefully at the amount of weapons, but mostly the bullet casings, all over the place, I let out a sigh. "Well, time to get started." I start picking up the casings.

"Need some help?" I look at Pearl to her offered question.

"Please." I say almost in a begging tone before going back to gathering.

She smirks and starts grabbing items along with me. "Garnet! Amethyst! You too!" She calls out to them.

"What?! Why us?!" Amethyst asks loudly.

"Because we agreed to the idea." Garnet answers for us and grabs a handful of casings and one of my Glocks. "C'mon, lets go."

"Fine." Amethyst begrudgingly agrees and starts grabbing.

"Thanks guys." I thank them.

"Yeah, yeah." Amethyst replies.

"What can I do?" I look to Steven at his question as he's still carrying Baby Melon's remains. After taking a second to thing, I come up with the perfect idea.

"Steven," I drop the casings and grip both of his shoulders. "I have a very important task for you." I ask him in a very serious tone.

"What is it?" He asks in a slightly excited tone, expecting something big for him to do.

"Don't lick anymore seeds."

It's really not but more of a… precaution at this point.

 **Happy Halloween everyone! Sorry this was a little late... I think. You know how my upload pattern is completely all over the place so if this is early or late, that's for you to decide.**

 **Alright, I have no idea if I went too crazy with this thing or not but I feel alright with it. Like seriously, can you guys tell me at any other point in the show could Marcus have as much fun as he did here or a better opportunity for it? In any case I hope things are well with you guys as they are with me. The beginning of November will have me doing a couple more tests so expect the usual at that time. I'll probably ave I don't have any new games coming out I'm going to pick up. I mean there are plenty of ones I want to buy but of course I don't have enough money.**

 **It kind of sucks but, eh what can you do. I want to try to get Halo Wars 2 at least and as well as State of Decay 2 but I guess I'll have to wait and see how much money I get in time.**

 **As always, see ya later and have fun reading.**


	26. 24 Lion 3: Straight to Video

Well, it took a few days but we were able to scour the entire beach area for all the bullet and shell casings Pearl and I expended. We got the ones on the surface pretty easy enough but Steven had the brilliant idea to use a metal detector to grab any other ones that got buried in the battle. Normally I would leave them but considering the sheer amount of them that were left behind, I don't want to leave them lying around so if people start finding them by the handful, I don't want people to get suspicious of what went on around there and possibly call the cops. I'm glad that the police haven't come by after the stint with that purse snatcher but I still have to be careful in the future. Of course I'm also gonna have to clean a majority of the guns because in the moment I was forced to drop them in the sand and god knows just how much that'll screw with the internal components of the weapons themselves. I do not want a malfunction to happen next time I use one of them. My M240L also took a massive blow what with it being chopped in half so now it's going to be placed in a sort of mock broken pile I have set up for whatever it is that was broken at least until I find the proper supplies to fix this stuff, right next to my AK47 and my Ballistic Shield.

"Parry, parry, thrust!"

Now though, Pearl proved herself capable of using human firearms so now it was about time for us to get started on something that we were putting off for too long.

"Keep your legs bent, Marcus."

"Got it."

We'll still do firearms training when more opportunities arise but for now, she agreed to teach and refine my skills with a blade. She's already given me some pointers and necessary moves needed for me to use when I use a sword and now she gave me one of her straight swords to use in the art of fencing.

"Alright, that's enough. Disengage."

"Disengaging combat training." The holo-Pearl says and soon dissipates into a cloud of particles.

"Now that you've got most of the basics down, let's do a battle of our own." She says as she bends down to pick up the sword left behind by the hologram. She extends her hand to me, signaling me to hand her her sword back. I toss it to her and she swipes the both of them into a ready stance. "Your Katana's are your personal weapons and you can rely on them in a moment's notice. I need to see how well you can perform against another weapon wielding combatant before we can move onto the more advanced portions."

I nod and pull out both of my swords and level them in a similar stance to her. "Well, technically they're my mom's but you are right about relying on them. I can pull them out in a moment's notice." I explain to her casually with a smile.

"Maybe so, let's get started." She tells me and slides her feet into a fighting ready stance.

"3…" She begins counting down.

"2…" I say next and mirror her feet.

"1…" She tightens the grip on her swords.

"Haaa!" We both yell out and attack each other.

* * *

The fight wasn't anything too spectacular to brag about. We mostly tested our reflexes and speed capabilities when fighting against another sword combatant. None of our attacks were ever meant to actually hit us or go to the point where we knew the other would not be able to dodge the hit. I got her into some moments where I deliberately had to slow my strikes to allow her to dodge them but that's not to say that I didn't get into the same moments as well. She doubled her pulling attacks on me which goes to show that even though I am good, I'm not near as good as a person like is Pearl in a standard sword fight.

"Very good. You're definitely more skilled than I first thought and I believe it won't take much for you to master the art of sword combat." She praises me as we start to walk out of the coliseum training ground. We've been training for a few hours now, as evident by the night time sky around us.

"Thanks Pearl, although I'm still a little annoyed at my slow reaction times to most of your attacks."

"Yes, I noticed that. I'm sure you'll gain faster reaction times as we train some more but I am curious about those fast movements you exhibited when you first fought Garnet." She reminds me of when I protected Lapis from Garnet's potential onslaught.

' _Hm, wonder how Lapis is doing anyway? She hasn't sent some kind of message back since she left. I hope she's alright.'_ I think for a bit but I shake my head and continue with Pearl. "Yeah, that move… I'm still not sure. My powers, like Steven's, are still a little raw and at this point I have no idea what triggers exactly most of them. I got the kinetic strike ability's down pretty good, as well as preventing fall damage from affecting me, but that shadow speed and some others are still kind of unknowns."

"Well, hopefully you can figure those powers out soon. You have other powers you're working on as well?" She asks me curiously when we stop in front of the teleporter pad.

My mind flashes to the stormy night, the night I caused the wreck and when I had to do… less than savory methods to free myself from said wreck. I definitely followed through with the Latin saying I said, 'Extremis Malis Extrema Remedia', meaning 'Desperate times call for desperate measures.' It wasn't pretty but at least it showed me that I have a backup should something that serious happen to me again, although I wasn't too privy to being knocked out for a full day but it could have been worse. "Yeah, I do. Nothing concrete and… nothing I can fully work with but I'll figure it out." I don't want to tell them the regenerating power yet until I got that thing locked down.

"I hope you do." She says and steps onto the pad. "I will admit that to go one-on-one with Garnet like that night… It's not an easy feat." She tells me.

"I imagine so." I reply and step onto the pad as well, where she activates it and sends us back home. The same usual 'whirring' noise accompanies us as we make it back to the temple and we step off the pad. "Well, it's getting late and I'll-"

"Hey! That's mine too!" We stop our conversation to the voice and see Steven on his bed with Lion sitting in front of him with his bear in his mouth. "And Sir Bearington." He demands of the animal, who obeys and opens his mouth, dropping the stuffed bear into the kids hand. "Hup! Ughh." He lands onto his bed and curls up into his blanket before yawning. "'Night lion!" He wishes to the animal before going to sleep. Lion curls up on a makeshift bed that Steven apparently made and catches some Zzz's too.

We stare at the scene for a few moments before I lean in to Pearl, "I'll see you tomorrow." I whisper to her so as not to arouse the sleeping occupants of the house.

"Good night." She whispers back and I go to sleep on the other couch since Lion is sleeping right in front of the other one and while I like the animal, I can still be wary at times for it. I flop on the couch and curl up to go to sleep, not really bothering to properly change out since I'm pretty beat. Strange thing is I feel like I'm being watched like on some previous nights but I pay it no mind since I've kind of got that feeling too many times when I was sleeping in my truck before I met the Crystal Gems.

* * *

"Steven! Steven!" I jerk awake as I hear the name being called out over and over again loudly and in panic. I grab my FNX-45 Tactical hidden underneath the cushion and search around for any hostiles. "Steven! Steven!" My eyes fall on a hysterical Pearl near Steven's bed. "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Hang on! I got you!"

"Pearl? What's going-?" I try to ask her as she grabs Steven's legs.

Pearl struggles to move Lion off of Steven. "Marcus! Please help me with Steven!" She cries out to me as she struggles with something.

"What are you…? Oh fuck! I got you!" I curse in surprise as I finally notice the wiggling legs under the beast known as Lion. I drop my gun on the couch and jump onto the second floor before I grab one leg and she grabs the other and we heave to try to free him.

"Ugh, Lion! Let him go!" Pearl demands of the lion to do so. I never really took into account of how big or heavy the animal really was but considering how hard it is for us to pull him out, he's very heavy.

At least until he moves.

"Whoa!" I cry out as Steven goes flying out from under the animals stomach, sending Pearl and I rolling back. Well, she and Steven go rolling back against the TV and I, "Arhh!" Get tripped off the second floor and smack onto the hardwood floor with my back, causing me to lightly groan out.

"What happened?" Steven asks in general with light panting.

"That's what I want to know." I manage to strain out.

"Steven, are you all right? Why was Lion sleeping on top of you?" Pearl asks the kid.

"I don't know. He's being a little clingy today." He says as he walks up to the animal and pets him, prompting Lion to nuzzle back. "But that's cause I'm his favorite! Oh!" His boasting is cut off as Lion pulls Steven's face into his mane. "See?" He says through a muffled voice. "Wait..." He frees himself from the mane. "Why are you here, Pearl?"

"Ugh." I groan out as I manage to pull myself up.

"And you too, Marcus?" He adds me to his question.

"Well, 'I' was here because someone was calling out your name rather loudly, so I woke up and went into tactical mode to find the immediate danger. Ah!" I explain and groan out as I pop my back standing to my full height.

"Oh, Me? Nothing." She says but Steven and I don't buy it. "I was just uh... well, you know how I always say... um, I just uh... I like to watch you sleep sometimes." She blurts out the answer, much to our confusion. "And by sometimes I mean often." She says simply, not really all that there with what she does. _'She watches him sleep? Creepy. Wait, I sleep close to him…'_

My eyes widen as I come to a realization. "You're the eyes I've been feeling on me since I've started living here?!" I almost yell out in surprise.

"Is-is that bad?" She asks hesitantly.

I groan and flop onto the couch I was previously sleeping in, making sure to grab my gun and place it back in its hiding spot. "Very." I groan out and slightly annoyed. _'Well, that's one paranoia I've relieved of, now I've gotta deal with about a dozen more.'_

"Okie-dokie, it's time for everyone to leave Steven alone. I'm a growing boy and I needs my rest." I turn my head to watch as he flops onto his bed and tries to go to sleep. Lion's staring however dissuades him of proper rest. "Lion, that means you too." He closes his eyes for a second but opens them to see Pearl has joined in as well on the staring. "Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!" He shoos them off with a pillow and goes back to sleep. "'Night Marcus." He wishes me goodnight and I reciprocate it.

"'Night Steven." I reply and turn over to go to sleep, feeling slightly better at not having eyes on me.

* * *

*Slam*

"Seriously?" I groan out in annoyance at being woken up, again. I look up to see Steven climbing up his stairs. I hear a sad yowling sound, prompting me to lean against the window to see Lion outside. "What happened?" I ask out loud.

"He wouldn't stop so I put him outside as punishment." Steven explains and walks away with his head tilted up in the stuck up way like how parents discipline their kids or you're not listening to someone. Lions yowls out loud again. "Hmph!" Steven scoffs and goes up again, ignoring the animals cries. He yowls again and this time Steven stares at the animal with stars littering his eyes in an almost awe expression.

I stare between the two, watching Steven's in awe look at the beast outside and the simple almost pleading look on Lion's face through the window. _'What's going on?'_ I think as shift my look between the two.

Steven gasps out at something before running to the door, "He loves me! Aww, I just can't stay mad at you!" He says as he goes out on the porch to let Lion back inside. "You're a wonderful pink human being. Except you're not. 'Cause you're a lion." I lightly chuckle at his words as he hugs Lion.

I'm about to go to sleep but see something glowing on his face. "Huh?" I question at the glow but my confusion turns to panic as I see him slowly getting sucked in. "Steven!" I call out in a panic and jump off the couch before dashing out the door. I grab the kids shoulders and quickly pull him back with ease. He gasps out and inhales deeply, almost like he couldn't breathe. "Steven! Steven! You alright man?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." He reassures me but he seems to be confused as well like me. Slowly, he places his hand on Lion's mane while I ready myself in case anything else happens. To both of our surprises, it glows pink. "I'm going in." He says determinately.

"…Be careful." Usually I don't want him going into unknown territory by himself, but Lion hasn't really done anything to makes us skeptic oh him so I'll allow it. He inhales deeply and goes inside again, this time only his head. I hover my hands over his shoulders in case he gets sucked in. There is an air of awkwardness between Lion and I as he looks at me with a critical stare, like he doesn't want me to interfere. "Shut up." Steven pulls his head out and breathes in more air. "Wait, Steven what did you-?" He doesn't answer me and instead goes right back in. Much to my annoyance, and Lion's especially, he goes in and out of Lion's mane multiple times quickly.

"Hahaha." He lightly laughs at the motion.

"Mmmmm." Lions growls out at his action.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist." He apologizes to the animal before looking at me. "You gotta see this." He tells me with a smile and grabs my hand.

"Wait, Steven I-!"

"Deep breath." He warns me before inhaling deeply and climbs into Lion's mane, not at all acknowledging my question or my panic, I just inhale.

* * *

I'm almost blinded as I suddenly find myself in a furry mess. Steven has let go of my hand so I continue to climb my way up, getting out of the mess of fur and finding myself in awe, except without the wide mouth since I'm holding my breath. I am now standing tall in a large wide open field, the only thing I really see is a small hill with a tree on it some distance away from me and no wind. Oddly enough, the field I am standing in is bristling like a breeze is going through it but I don't feel any wind whatsoever. _'Weird.'_

*Tap*Tap*

Looking down, I see Steven standing next to me and pointing to the hill. Knowing what he's implying, I nod and we start walking towards the hill and tree. Steven leads the way as I follow behind him, admiring the landscape. _'This place is beautiful. It's so… big… expansive and looks to have no limit. I don't see any mountains and its bright like the suns out. Seriously Lion. I know your no normal lion but… what are you?'_

Steven suddenly stops, like he's struggling with something. I'm about to go and see what's wrong but I find out as he plunges his head through the grass and I see the glow. _'Needs air. Understandable.'_ I keep myself calm and steady my breathing as much as I can to hold as much as I could. _'If Steven or I plan to come in here again, I definitely need to work on that rebreather to make coming and going easy. Speaking of…'_ Curiously, I crouch down and place my hand on the ground, trying somehow to activate the way back but I got nothing. Steven brings himself back up and looks at me, pointing down. _'Looks like it only activates with him. That could be a problem in the future.'_ I get what he means and I shake my head no. I ration my air supply quite well and I still feel alright. He nods and we continue to the hill.

As we get closer I notice a bunch of objects in and around the tree, as well as seeing the pink grass has started to rescind and disappear. Trudging up the hill, we look around at all of the things under and around the tree. From what I can tell, I instantly spot a battered and slightly torn flag of some kind with Rose's symbol on it. _'This must be the flag she used for the rebellion.'_ I muse. Next I see a bubbled object of some kind. It looks like a gem but it's one that I've never seen before. The sword Steven and Connie used against that machine that attacked us during our trip to the movie theater is here as well. _'Huh, so that's where that went.'_ With a shrug I continue inspecting the items. Another is a T-shirt with the words 'Mr. Universe' on it and the size indicates XXL, a chest, a picture of Rose and Greg together, and finally I spot a VHS tape. _'Huh, curious.'_ I walk over to it with Steven and I see cursive writing on it that reads 'For Steven.' _'Hmmm,'_ I think as I grab the tape and flip it over a bit, seeing if I can find anything else of note about it but nothing. _'Interesting.'_ I look over to Steven next to me and hand him the tape. He looks at it expectantly and seems to be deep in thought. _'Not surprised. It's not every day that you go into a pocket dimension inside of your pet lion and find a tape with your name written on it. I wonder what's-'_ My thoughts are cut off as I spot Steven's face starting to redden and he scrambles on the floor. My eyes widen. _'Crap, he can't get out on the hill, only in the field!'_ He begins pointing at his mouth but I don't need any more clarification as I grab the kid and leap off the hill.

I land on the grassy field roughly, slightly pushing out what little air I have left. I place Steven on the ground and the floor glows.

* * *

"Pah!" I blow what air I have left out of my lungs as Steven and I go tumbling out of Lion's mane. We both breathe in deeply for a second as we try to reorient ourselves and catch our breath's. "… You good?"

"Yeah." He replies with a slightly strained voice and gets off me. He stands up and holds up the tape he managed to hold onto.

I sit up. "What do you thinks on it?"

"I don't-"

He's interrupted as the sound of the temple's door opening goes off. I quickly scoot out of the line of sight of the screen door and move next to the wall. "...and he keeps sleeping on Steven's face!" Peaking out, I see Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst walking out of the temple. "But Steven, and Marcus, don't want me watching them anymore. So one of you two has to do it." She tells them.

I look down at Steven as he stares at the tape. I tap his head, making him shift his attention to me. "Find out what's on that tape. I'll cover for you."

"Thanks Marcus." He whispers to me and climbs onto Lions back. "Let's go Lion." He tells the animal, who without a sound turns tail and bounds down the stairs.

"Where are they?" I hear Garnet ask.

"I don't know. They were sleeping before I left." Pearl says.

"Maybe they got kidnapped." Amethyst proposes to them.

"What?!"

' _Okay, better make sure Pearl doesn't freak out too much.'_ "C'mon Amethyst." I call out as I walk through the screen door, getting their attention. "You think so little of me. I was kidnapped once before. Did you really think I would have let myself get captured so easily? Or the very least left this place completely intact like so." I emphasize with a hand wave to our surroundings.

"Eh, I guess not." She resigns with a shoulder shrug.

"Thank you." I go to the fridge and pull out an apple before biting into it.

"Marcus, where is Steven?" Pearl asks me.

"Ehhh, Lion wouldn't stop so Steven went ahead and took him out for a walk. To see if he was just antsy about being inside or whatever." I lie with a dismissive hand wave. It's not a massive lie and hopefully they buy it.

"I guess that's an option." Pearl says with a hand under her chin.

"Still, one of us should go to make sure Lion doesn't suffocate Steven on the beach." Garnet says in her usual monotone voice.

"I got it." I quickly volunteer calmly before anyone else can. The tape seemed personal so I kind of don't want them to start demanding answers about it, or the pocket dimension in Lion. I bite the last of my apple whole before walking to the door. "Besides, I know which general direction he went in so it's better I go."

"Oh, alright then." Pearl says a little disheartened but agrees.

"See ya later." Amethyst says as she starts rummaging through the fridge. I reply with a dismissive hand wave back.

"We'll get breakfast started before you two get back." Garnet tells me as I open the screen door.

"Thanks."

"Be careful." Pearl says to me as I go out the door.

"Aren't I always?" I reply with a smile and continue down the stairs. _'Alright, Steven needed to go somewhere where there is a VCR. Now which places could more than likely-'_

"Actually, you aren't." Pearls declaration of my well-being shifts me from my thoughts, making me stop and look at Pearl while I'm at the bottom of the stairs. I turn back and look up to see her leaning over the wooden rails. She's holding her head up with her hand and arm on the rail with cheeky smile on her face.

"…" I think for a second with a neutral look at her short description of my life. "… Touché." I say with a slight head nod. She's not wrong. Since I can remember, more often than not the things I've done were good for either me or someone else but always required me to risk some form of bodily or mental injury. She smiles a little wider and stands to her full height. "I'll be going now." I tell her while pointing down the beach.

"See you in bit." She tells me with a slight hand wave and goes back inside, prompting me to continue my exploration but my thoughts aren't peaceful.

You know, after the training Pearl and I have been doing, I can't help but remember the conversation we were supposed to have before I was taken away from them while we were parachuting down. Seeing as how we are on good terms and not really at each other's throats or in awkward feelings anymore, I might as well not bring it up. It's nothing that's really serious per say and I don't want to make things awkward again.

After all, I don't want to open old wounds.

I walk out from past the rocks and spot the city before me. "Now where did he go? Their tracks are gone so either the wind picked up or Lion teleported. Either way, he went to find a VCR so he could have gone to his dads place or maybe- Oh… that was easy." I start to think but when my eyes land on the giant pink lion lying down in front of the 'Big Donut' store that Sadie and Lars work at, I got my answer. "Sadie's the reasonable kind sort. Lars… I'm not going to bother. I'm sure they have a VCR in the back." I say as I climb up the sea wall and over to Lion. "Let's see if he's found-" My talking stops as Steven walks out of the store. "Hey Steven! What did you…" I trail off as he hugs Lion lovingly. I move up next to him and see that he has slight tears in his eyes with a somber look about him. My face turns to confusion at the idea of what happened but looking in through the window of the store, I also spot Sadie talking on the phone with tears in her eyes as well. _'What did they watch?...'_ "Oh." I lightly gasp out as I feel contact along my waist. Looking down, I see its Steven giving me a hug. "Uhh, Steven?"

"Our moms were the best Marcus." He says, slightly muffled through my shirt.

"What?" I ask confused.

"They knew we would be born… but also knew… they would be gone as well." He grips me tighter.

' _Did… did his mom leave a message for him?... Like mine did.'_

"Don't… *Sniff* Don't forget about our moms… okay, Marcus?" He tells me sadly.

"S-Steven?" I stutter as I start to remember the same situation that I was when I found out about my mom.

"Please…" He hugs me tighter.

"Oh, Steven." I say somberly as I crouch down to his level and return the hug. "I won't my friend. I got your back." I tell him as I pat his back in reassurance.

He sniffs a little and pulls back. "Thanks Marcus." He thanks me and climbs onto Lion's back. "C'mon, let's go home."

"Right behind you." I tell him as Lion casually walks away with his passenger. As I walk after him, I look back to Sadie to see her looking at me with a smile. She gives me a slight head nod and I return it with a smile as well.

' _Thank you Sadie.'_ I think as I go back to keeping up with the duo. _'I hope this is closure for you Steven. We both needed some what with our… unique situations… and parents.'_

 **Alright, well I think this was a bit tame when compared to the last chapter. I apologize if the previous fight was too long and drawn out, or if it wasn't long enough. There's no pleasing some of you but I guess that's what makes things interesting for us all. Either way it felt awesome writing that fight. I couldn't help but imagine the shooting all going in slow motion and what not throughout the firearms going off.**

 **Now onto my personal life, tests are back so I might be slightly delayed next but at this point, I'm not so sure. I only go to two class days out of the week so the rest of the time is free for me to do as I please. I usually try to devote at least an hour or write a minimum of 500 words for the next chapter but more often than not, I tend to double or triple either of those amounts quite easily since I get carried away.**

 **Still, I hope things are alright with you all and have fun reading.**


	27. 25 Warp Tour

Steven didn't mention the pocket dimension to the gems since he thinks it isn't that big of a deal. I think it's a very big deal what with Rose's stuff inside it and all, but it's his decision and I'll respect it.

Plus he's the only one that can access the dimension. I know I tried. I spent the better part of a minute trying to concentrate and open the portal but all that earned me was Lion almost biting my head off. Not wanting to invoke his wrath, I let it be.

Anyway, it's been pretty quiet since that revelation Steven and I found out, both for him and his mom, and me with Pearl basically. At least now that she's agreed to stop with the spying on Steven, and in turn me as well, I'm sleeping a lot better than I thought possible. No longer do I have slight deep seated anxiety plaguing me when I go to sleep and compared to how I've been sleeping before, I sleep like a baby now.

I've been looking into what type of construction company's I could use for my home's construction but when I specify the blueprints and the type of location the place is on, either most of them turn down the offer or I do, because some don't feel comfortable making something on the precarious cliff-side I have planned, their vehicles can't get to the place properly and can't spare the man power to lug their equipment to and from it, and I turn them down because of the sheer amount of money they would ask for to build the place. I know I have a ton of money with me right now that I could make it happen but I need to ration it for possibly emergency's that could take place. I can't be dropping that type of cash willy-nilly like that or else some people might get suspicious and try to investigate this suspicious money laundering.

While the issue with my home is something that's really annoying the hell out of me, right now we just finished something I feel like going home.

"I can't believe that went so well!" Pearl exclaims happily about the success of the fight.

"That was kinda great when you hit it with your spear and it went, like, 'bing-bong!'" Amethyst says and proceeds to make explosion sounds to emphasize what happened. Usually the two are at each other's throats so I'm happy to see them complimenting each other.

Pearl blushes cutely at the compliment from her teammate. "And the way you were circling around it? Almost looked like strategy." And there's the subtle insult right there.

"Haha, well, you know, I can do that stuff, too." Amethyst blushes the same way as Pearl and misses the possibly unintentional insult by her.

"Maybe so you two." I say from right next to them as I spin the bubbled gem in my hand like a basketball. "But remember it was a team effort on our part… and a big gun on mine to go along with it." I say with a smile as I tap the bubble back to the temple with the hand holding the Striker shotgun.

"Still making use of your firearms I see." Pearl tells me with a smile.

"Hey," I say and start walking backwards to the warp pad. "If it ain't broke, don't change it." I say with arms stretched out. I hold the shotgun onto my shoulder and step onto the pad, the others joining me. "And I am not changing it any time soon."

"Wait up!" Before either of us could continue, Steven's voice is clearly heard as both he and Garnet emerge from the field of flowers. He doesn't look good at all what with his runny nose and red eyes. "Sorry I couldn't help much, I think the flowers are making me- Ah-choo!" He sneezes on Garnet's hip. "Sorry, Garnet."

"I'll live." She tells him simply.

"Oh, Steven, you're supposed to sneeze into your antecubital fossa." Pearl informs him.

"My what?" He asks in confusion as he and Garnet walk onto the warp pad.

"Your elbow Steven." I point to my own elbow to emphasize it.

He looks down curiously at his elbow as they activate the pad. He gasps out lightly at the sudden change in scenery but as we travel through the bright tunnel, Steven's allergy's act up. "Ah-ahh!" He starts to sneeze.

"Do it at Pearl!" Amethyst immediately ousts Pearl to Steven as she points at her.

"Steven, your fossa!" Pearl cries out.

"Pearl! You know he doesn't get the technical terms of things!" I scold her a little. I know she's more into the smart more real terms of things but when it comes to Steven, they kind of go over his head.

"Ah-CHOO!" He sneezes loudly, thankfully not hitting any of us but it does present another problem to us.

"Oh!" Pearl gasps as Steven is propelled up and away from us and I see his head passing the tunnels barrier.

"Steven!" I cry out the kids name. _'Crap! The gems told me it's a form of space out there so if he's sucked out…'_ I look at Pearl. "Grab my ankles." I tell her as I sling my shotgun on my back.

"Huh?" She asks in confusion but I ignore and look at Amethyst.

"Sorry about this." I apologize to her in advance.

"Huh? Ouh!" She grunts out as I plant my foot on her face and push off, propelling me towards the kid.

Just before I go too far, I feel something grab my pants lega at the end as I grab Steven's legs. "Alright, pull!"

"Ngh!" Pearl and Garnet grunt out as they pull me back, bringing both Steven and I towards the gems.

"Steven!" I call out the kids name as I bring him close to me and check him for anything wrong. "You alright bro?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He tells me but shivers slightly as well. I also notice that the snot under his nose is frozen completely. _'Wow, they weren't kidding about the cold.'_

"You have to be careful! It's dangerous to stick your head out of the stream!" Pearl warns him.

"There's not much air, and it's very cold." Garnet further explains as she flicks frozen snot off Steven's nose.

' _Alright, well it looks he's all-'_

"You guys, I saw something out there!"

"What?" Pearl asks curiously at his statement.

"Huh?" I mutter in confusion as well.

"Something warping!"

"What?!" I ask in surprise. The only people or things I know that could warp using the pads all involve gems or gems tech. If there is something warping, then an unknown player in the field has the potential to appear right in the middle of our home.

"Steven, that's not possible. Is your vision blurry from the pollen?" Pearl asks him, most likely not believing the kid.

"I can see perfectly, Pearl." He replies to her while squinting his eyes. _'Way to contradict her statement man.'_ I think sarcastically. "I know there's something out there!" He firmly tells us.

"You sure?" I question. He nods yes. "Oh man, this could be bad." I mutter warily.

"There's nothing out there, Steven. There hasn't been anything else for a long, long time." Garnet tells him.

"Ah-hem." I get their attention. "If I remember correctly, wasn't I something you guys never seen before and bam! Dropped right into your lives?" I remind them and it's true. We didn't know about each other for the longest time and all of sudden we find out about each other one fateful day. I don't know what else we could find but if its anything like me… I need be ready for hostilities.

The gems look at each other, making me smile at the seed of doubt I planted amongst them.

"Amethyst, why do you have shoe print on your face?" Steven asks the purple gem.

She shifts her attention to me and I can feel the glare she's giving me.

"*Whistles innocently*" I whistle innocently as I slowly turn my body away from them.

* * *

After we got back home, the gems congregated to the temple to possibly speak about what it is that Steven could have seen but from their expressions and the tones in their voices, I don't think they're going to talk about it and instead chalk it up to the kids imagination or his allergy's making him see things. I was annoyed that they blatantly disregard his accusations but at that point Steven and I were tired and went to sleep. To be sure, I went ahead and checked my most ready to use weapons in case something happens. I went ahead and checked my FNX Tactical with all the mods I had on it when I escaped the Iron Kings compound that was under the cushion of the couch near the front door to make sure it was working properly. I also took my Anaconda revolver from my truck for more variety and power, and I keep my jacket within reach as well. I have the Anaconda in its holster nearby as well for me to quickly strap it on when I need it.

"Aah! Aghh!"

"Gah!"

"Oh god! Pah! Oof!"

The sleep was nice but getting rudely awakened by a splash of water to the face tends to freak a person out and send their senses into complete overdrive when they were quiet and asleep, to completely awake and alert. It also sometimes sends a person rolling off their make-shift bed and face down on the floor. "Ugh!" I groan as I look up with blurry eyes to see the others by the door.

"See what you did? Now you're not getting any cookies." I hear Garnet tell presumably Steven.

"What?" I ask on confusion as I stand up.

"Cookies?! I'll take 'em!"

"Aah!" I cry out as Amethyst barrels past me, pushing me back onto the couch. As I look back up, I hear Garnet whistling to the purple gem like a dog with a treat. She happily grabs the tray and proceeds to scarf down the cookies.

"Slow down, Amethyst." Garnet tells her but she ignores it and continues to eat ravenously.

"Guys," I say as I stand up and walk over to them. "What's going on?" I also wipe the bits of water that was on my face with an annoyed expression and ask them.

"I'm sorry, Pearl and Marcus. I just, I guess I didn't…" He tries to say but yawns.

"Didn't sleep." Garnet figures out as she has a finger on her chin pensively.

The kid lets out another yawn. "Maybe." He mutters.

"Oh, Steven!" Pearl says as she wipes some water out of her eye. I'd question why Steven decided to use a water gun as his go to weapon in case something did attack… but I think I'd only question that because I don't use water guns, I use powdered firearms that could kill a man, or gem, from a mile away using very precise highly combustible projectiles. "This isn't about the thing you think you saw outside the warp stream yesterday, is it?"

*Clang*

Pearl tenses as Amethyst chucks the empty tray of cookies away, making a loud sound in the process. I glare at her because of her disregard for the sound or item.

"But it was real! Something was warping somewhere in the warp!" Steven almost yells to them at their disregard for his claims.

"Listen." Pearl places her hands on his cheeks, making him look at her. "Nothing on Earth can use the warps but us. Do you understand?" She asks him. Steven doesn't believe her, making him look away. "Steven, nod in agreement if you understand. Nod in agreement-"

" Pearl, Pearl, Pearl." I say her name multiple times to get her attention off the kid. "Lay off the kid. He believes what he believes… and he can't nod if you're holding his head like that." I also proceed to pull her off him as well.

"I'm confident Pearl is right thought." Both of them look at Garnet. "But if it'll make you feel better, we can just go check." Garnet tells the paranoid kid. I walk over to my weapons as Steven smiles gratefully at the tall gem. "Good. Let's go."

"Right behind you."

*Cha-chik*

With an intimidating action, I rack the receiver on my Vector and step onto the warp pad. "Is that really necessary?" Pearl asks me as she and the others step onto the pad.

"Hey, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it." I tell her simply.

She has no retort for my statement but Garnet does. "Smart."

"Thank you." With that, we are sent off.

* * *

We warp back to the meadow and I do a quick glance for anything suspicious.

"Clear." I find nothing so I give the all-clear for them.

"Mm-hmm. Nothing unusual." Garnet tells Steven.

"Ah-ahh - Ahh-choo!" Steven responds by sneezing.

"Bless you." Garnet and I tell him and we take off.

* * *

Our next destination sends us to the giant geode rock that has the freaky storm inside it.

"Nothing here, either. And the geode is holding nicely." Pearl points out.

"I still say I want to take an acetylene torch to the crack. Or maybe an arc welder." I think pensively but before I can add anymore to the subject, we warp out.

* * *

Next we find ourselves back at the Sky Spire.

"Whoa! Now that's something!"

"What are you-?... Oh." I start to question Amethyst at her outburst but I soon see what it is that's surprised her, and me. "That is something."

A little ways away, Steven Jr. the goat is not really a Jr. but more so a daughter because right now 'she' is laying on the ground with a couple other goat kids prancing around.

"Heh. Steven Jr.'s been busy." Amethyst says to the kid with a laugh. "This makes you a grandpa!"

"Congratulations." Garnet congratulates the kid with a head rub.

"Hey!" He shoos her off. "We're getting off task here!" He reminds them of our original task: Finding out what was warping that wasn't us.

"We've looked all over! There's nothing out here to find!" Pearl says in a slightly frustrated tone. _'Yes I know Pearl. This is frustrating and may be pointless in the end but you never know and I'd rather not know of what could happen if we leave it alone.'_

"But you're wrong."

"Excuse me?!"

"Oh boy." I place a hand on the side of my head at what's probably going to happen. Steven only mumbles his words but it was enough for us to hear him, and slightly irk Pearl.

"I-I mean-" He tries to save himself from a scolding but fails.

"Nothing on Earth can use these warps but us!" She reminds us loudly. _'Yes, we know Pearl. You won't stop emphasizing about it.'_ I think, slightly irked in my own way at the back and forth everyone is on the whole matter. I don't care either way. Paranoia is the name of the game for me practically 24/7 and if it only takes me a few hours of my life to ensure I get days rest without paranoia, I'll take it.

"Well, what if it came from space?"

At Steven's suggestion, I can't help but look up to the sky. "That is a possibly." I mutter.

"Oh, don't be ridiculous Marcus." Pearl immediately dismisses me.

"Then how did gems originally come to earth?" I contradict her dismissal of my idea. Yes, the warp pads to off-world are broken but at one point the planet didn't have any gem technology on it at all. They came from space and planted the gem equipment here to begin with. _'I see no reason for more to come through space now to find out what's going on. Probably much easier now considering how much time has passed and the advance in technology.'_

"I-... don't appreciate your tone." Pearl replies, probably to both Steven and I's suggestions.

* * *

Before anymore could be said, we are warped again and this time it's to the Galaxy Warp.

"These are the warps that once connected us to other planets." Pearl begins to explain to us about the absurdity of our suggestions as she walks towards the Homeworld warp. "If something tried to come from space, it would be through here. But wait!" She says in mock surprise. "This warp pad is broken, marked inactive by the very depressed cartoon breakfast sticker you placed here yourself after Marcus confirmed its inactivity!" She reminds us.

Their eyes shift to me, making me sigh as I remember. "It's true." I sadly say as I look down.

"Look," Amethyst walks over to Steven, "Pearl's right, like usual." She grumbles before groaning. "Ugh! You get used to it."

Garnet then walks up to the kid and places her hand on top of his head. He grabs her hand and looks up to her. "We're safe." She tells him.

He still looks uneasy about the idea as he looks to me for an answer as well. With nothing more to go one, I shrug my shoulders. _'I got nothing. I didn't see what you saw but if it was enough to freak you out, I'm willing to help. But if we don't find anything…?'_

"Well, I guess so." He submits to the gems claim that he was just seeing things. With sad and unhappiness looming over him, he walks over to the Homeworld warp pad and places his hand beside the Crying Breakfast Friends sticker he placed on it. I holster my SMG and walk up to the kid. I place a hand on his shoulder, giving him some small amount of comfort. He looks at me with a glum look and I return it with a smile. I see the hint of a smile adorn his features at the comfort.

"Ahhhh!" I can't help but feel a little irked at the sigh of relief the gems all let out behind us.

"Oh, man! Finally! That took all day." Amethyst says annoyed.

"It was important to make Steven feel secure." At Garnets statement, I see out of my peripheral at the slowly building anger coming over my fellow hybrid.

"Yes, Steven feels much better now."

"Guys!" With the last straw by Pearl, I say loudly to get them to stop. "What the hell?! He's right here! You don't go patronizing a person behind their back when their a foot away from you!" I slightly yell at them for their actions.

"And I'm tired of you guys telling me how I feel!" Steven says with anger laced in his voice as well. "I know I saw something outside the stream!"

"And I know you didn't!" Pearl outright denies him.

At this point, Steven gets upset at their deniability and the two of them proceed to argue. Their accusations and suggestions go back and forth with each other with heated debate. I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration while both Amethyst and Garnet both look at each before turning back to the argument in front of us.

"Uh, this is new." Amethyst says as I unsling my Vector. "I kind of like it." She adds as I screw the silencer off of my gun.

"Steven, you just don't know what you're talking about." Pearl tells him with an eye roll.

"It sounds like, maybe, you don't know what I'm talking about!" He retorts.

"Ugh!"

*BANG*

"ENOUGH!" I yell loudly, stopping the argument in its track and getting all eyes on me. "This is going on long enough! This is getting us nowhere so you three!" I point to the gems. "Get back to the temple. I need to talk to Steven. Alone." I accentuate the last part.

"But-"

"Let it go, Pearl." Garnet halts the pale gems argument before it begins with her words and a shoulder pat. "He's got this." She looks unsure of the idea at first but resigns to it. With a nod, she walks onto the pad along with Amethyst, followed by Garnet. "We'll see you guys in a bit." With that final say, they warp out.

Now that the deniers are gone, I turn to the kid as I reattach my silencer. "Hey, Steven-"

"You believe me, right?" He asks me. I look down at the almost pleading look on his face.

"Look, Steven," I begin to say as I crouch down to his height and lay my gun on the ground. "I didn't see what you saw. None of us did. You were the only one to have his head out of the warp stream and were the only one in the position to have seen anything." I tell him the truth about the situation. What I said is the truth and as much as how rude it sounds, it's the truth and I'm not going to try to sugarcoat it. He looks down in sadness at the truth of my words. I place a hand on his shoulder, making him look up to me again. "I'm going to ask you a question. You look me in the eyes and tell me your honest answer."

I place both of my hands on his shoulders and look him in the eyes. "Did you see something in the warp streams?"

He doesn't shift his eyes from me. He keeps to what I asked and I can see the small conflict spiraling in his mind through his eyes. Silence rains between us as he tries to come up with an answer.

"Yes." He says firmly.

I continue to stare at him for a few seconds, checking to see if there's anything about him that indicates he's lying.

I don't see any.

"Alright." I say and grab my gun before standing up. "If you saw something, I'll be cautious from now on. Oh!"

"Thank you!" He cries out happily as he barrels into my waist and hugs me. I chuckle a little and pat his back in reassurance. Yes, Steven's a kid, he's young and chances are he could have been seeing things… but there is always the chance that the naïve kid is telling the truth and this kid before me has not steered me wrong. We continue to share our moment together.

"You're not going to sleep tonight, are you?" I ask him with a smirk.

"Nope!" He says with a hint of happiness or without a care. I chuckle at his go-lucky attitude and break the hug.

"Alright then, how about this? We go home and chill out for a bit. When the gems go into the temple, you can do whatever you want on the homefront and me? If you want, I can keep an eye on things here. Pearl wasn't wrong." I say as I wave a hand to the warp pads around us. "These pads do lead into space and there is the chance that if anything were to come to the planet, here is an option as well. Deal?" I ask him as extend my hand for fist bump.

"Deal." He punches my fist with determination and a smile.

"Atta boy." I tell him as I ruffle his hair, making him laugh in the process. "Now c'mon. Let's go eat. I'm hungry." I inform him and walk over to the warp pad.

"Yeah, I can go for a bite to eat." He agrees with me on the idea of eating and walks with me.

"Anything in particular?" I ask as I step onto the pad.

"Not macaroni."

"Why?" I ask him curiously as he stands next to me.

"Amethyst ate all the cheese."

"Seriously?" I ask incredulously as we warp out.

* * *

Hours pass and it's already hit night time. Steven was still determined to stay up and guard the temples warp pad in case if anything comes through and potentially attacks our home. Right now, I'm sitting on the steps to the Galaxy warp pad to Homeworld and inspecting my weapons. As I sit here, inspecting my Colt Anaconda and my Vector, I start to think about the situation.

' _Man, company from space? That's crazy. It was crazy as it was when Pearl, Steven and I tried to leave the planet but this a chance for something to actually come tour planet. Something that the gems are possibly worried about if it's Homeworld involved. Regardless of the object involved, whether it is of Homeworld origin or not, I still need to be prepared for this unknown party and see if their friendly or not.'_ With that thought in mind, I reload my revolver and spin the cylinder. As I look at my revolver in hand, I sigh and place it down on the floor before grabbing my head in frustration. _'I know it would make you feel bad Steven… but I hope your wron-'_

I grab my Vector and train my sights on the warp pad as it activates. I keep hoping that it's my friends coming to check up on me. As the travelers appear, I think, _'Steven… you were right.'_

To my dismay, I see something I've never seen before. A dozen or so light green spherical glass balls of sort stand on suspended light green cylinders with two black dots on each of them. I keep my sights trained on them for any sort of retaliation they might inflict. When they start to walk towards me, I slip my finger onto the trigger and am ready to fire on a moment's notice. _'They aren't attacking outright but they could be just getting into position. Be ready. Wait for any sudden moves. Let them make the first move so I'll be in the right if they do anything-'_ My thoughts are cut off as they completely ignore me and part around me like the red sea and head behind me. Once all of them pass me, I turn back to see where they are going. They all stop on the Homeworld warp pad and open up compartments on their fronts before they start spraying some sort of viscous liquid on the pad. "What the-"

Before I can question any further, I hear the sound of a warp pad activating and turn back to see more of these things spawning. Like before, another dozen or so of them start to walk towards the warp pad and join the others in spraying the pad. "What are they doing?" I ask myself as I walk over to the stairs to get a closer look at their work. So far there's nothing outstanding happening, the gunk is slowly growing and coating the entire pad itself, filling in any nooks and crannies that were adorning the broken teleporter. The warp pad activates again but I don't bother to turn around as I continue to remain wary of the robots.

"Marcus!"

The loud voice shifts me from the robots work to who called my name. I look back to the pad to see everyone else there. "Guys!"

"What's going on?" Garnet asks me while holding onto one of the legs of one of the robots, a cracked one at that. It detaches its leg being held by Garnet and walks over to its brothers.

"What are they doing to the Homeworld warp?!" Pearl asks in surprise.

"I have no idea. They started coming by in droves and completely ignored me. They moved around me and went straight to that pad." I explain as I point to the gathered robots.

"There's a million of them!" Amethyst says in surprise at the amount of them. Obviously it's not a million but they are almost completely covering the whole Homeworld warp by themselves alone. Before anyone can retort, the robots back off as the Homeworld warp shines as good as new. _'Holy…_ ' "They fixed it?!" Amethyst asks the question on all our minds.

"How did they…?" I start to question.

"What does that mean?" Steven asks out loud. I have no idea what it means but Pearl is a little on edge what with her pushing herself in between Garnet and Amethyst.

"I… don't know!" She says unsure. From the looks on the others, besides Steven, they are completely stumped as well.

Before we can contemplate anymore, the Homeworld warp now fixed activates. "Contact. Hide!" I loudly whisper to them as I dash to and roll behind a large column of stone. As I place myself against the flat part of the rock, I see Garnet grab the others and jumps onto another tall column of rock nearby where she hangs off it with her gauntlet dug deep into the stone.

I continue to hide behind it the pillar of stone as I clutch my Vector. As I peek out so I can assess the warp traveler, I freeze and my eyes widen as I spot my revolver on the ground next to the stairs, right under the breakfast sticker of Steven's. _'Damn.'_ Before I can even think to go back, the warp pad dissipates, revealing the person who used it. Looking at the tall person, I instantly see that the person is immensely green and a feminine figure to it. As the person looks around and taps their foot on the pad, I look back to the others away from me. They peek out and look fearful and worried at me, whether it's because of my close proximity to the figure, or the figure itself. I place a finger to my lips to indicate for the others to keep quiet, then I wave my hand downwards to signal for them to keep their heads down.

"Hmm." At her tone, I now know its female and when I look back, I see an interesting sight. The light green floating digits I thought were her fingers floats in a hexagonal shape and what looks like a screen appears. She uses the last digit she has on the same hand to start manipulating buttons and sliders on the screen. I can't make out what it is that's on the screen but I think I also spot wavelengths appear on it as well. "Log date: 312. This is Peridot performing earth hub maintenance check." She says as one of the little robots crawls on her shoulder.

I lean back against the rock and quietly check my gun to make sure it's working. _'Peridot… that's a gem. No doubt about it.'_ I peek back out and take a good hard look at her facial features and the gem adorning her forehead. _'She's a Homeworld gem.'_

"Warp repair a success. All 79 flask robonoids deployed and accounted for. Preparing to locate and manually reactivate Kindgar—" She lightly gasps out at something. Looking down, I see the robonoid that Garnet was holding earlier that was cracked trying to crawl up her leg but fails. Peridot looks down at the thing annoyed and steps on it. When I think it can't get any worse, she pushes on it until it pops in a mess of that same goo they shot out to repair the warp pad. _'What the hell are these things made out of? I don't see any sort of mechanics in that mess.'_ I start to think.

"Now to access the domestic warp." She states and walks down the stairs. I purse my lips in thought, _'Domestic… oh god! Is she talking about the—'_ "Huh?" Before I can continue to freak out in my mind about the idea of this person heading home right to where we live, her question stops me. Peeking back out, I tense up as she takes a look at Steven's Crying Breakfast Friends sticker. "Huh." She says as she peels the sticker off. She looks at it for a second before looking down and spots my revolver. My breath hitches as she bends down and picks up my gun by the barrel and looks at it curiously. "Hmmm." She says in contemplation as she examines my weapon from all angles.

' _Oh god, please tell me she's isn't a little kid and shoots herself in the face.'_ I practically beg in my mind.

"This site may have been compromised." She states out loud as she looks around, thankfully not in my direction. She walks back onto the Homeworld warp with both items in hand before she places a greend disc thing on the pad as she warps out. The device starts to beep, sending up red flags in my head.

' _Beeping isn't good!'_ Quickly, I chuck my SMG away and run out from behind the pillar before I jump onto the warp pad in a single bound and grab the beeping disc. "Heya!" With a grunt of effort, I toss the device away as hard as I can. By the time it leaves my hand, the beeping is going a lot more rapidly and as soon as it leaves the arena-like area I am standing in, it explodes. I bring my arms up to shield myself but interestingly enough, it isn't a combustible explosive that goes off but something else. As I look down, I see all the robonoids around me still standing and looking around curiously but a couple of them closest to the explosion lie almost dead on the ground. _'Hm, EMP maybe?'_

"They're coming back!" I look down at the others as they come out of hiding, Pearl looking freaked out and fearful all to hell. "I can't do this! Not again!" She says as she covers her face with her hands.

"We're dead! We are so dead!" Amethyst cries out hysterically and this time, it seems legitimate, not playing around like other times.

' _Wow, they're really freaked out about this.'_ I think as I jump off the Homeworld warp and walk over to them.

"Was that another gem? Where did she come from? What was she trying to do?" Steven starts to barrage the gems with questions of what's going and I'm curious as well.

"Yeah guys. What's going on? We could really use… some…" My question peters off as Garnet moves past me and starts to walk up towards the Homeworld warp. "Garnet?"

"Huh?" Steven and I question.

"It doesn't matter." She tells us firmly and before I can protest, she summons her gauntlets but these are different than the ones from before because they are several times bigger.

"Whoah…" Steven, Amethyst and I are in awe at the sheer size of Garnet's weapon.

Unfortunately, I'm too awestruck at her power to stop her from bringing her gauntlets up and then down onto the Homeworld warp, shattering it to oblivion. "She's not coming back!" She tells us all with a commanding firm voice, telling us that if there's any room for arguing, there is none. _'Geez, what the hell? That was my only link to Homeworld… unless…'_ My eyes shift to the robonoids gathered nearby after they cleared out so they wouldn't be crushed by Garnet. _'If I can control them, then maybe…'_ I think with a smile. This is the closest I am to modern gem technology. I can't lose these things, especially not with that repairing goo they spit out.

It also means that I'm really worried when Garnet shifts her attention to the robonoids. She brings her arms up. "Hold it!" I jump in front of the robots with my arms extended out.

"Out of the way Marcus." She tells me with gauntlets high in the air, ready to strike.

"I can't let you do this Garnet. I can't let you destroy them." I refuse to move from my spot.

"Why?" Pearl asks me as the others walk up to us.

"Don't you see? These things are robots. Devices and gizmos to be tinkered with to be set to a person's preference. If I can take control of them—"

"No."

"Then I can use these things for who knows what type of ways." I continue to say, completely ignoring Garnets comment.

"No."

"I'm not asking for your permission Garnet." I glare at her. "Homeworld was the best place I can go to find out everything I can about my mother and you just destroyed the only path I have to it. I'm not going to repair the warp pad if that's what you're thinking but this is the closest I have access to modernized gem technology and with the enemies we face… or going to face if how freaked out you guys are about that gem, then we're going to need all the help we can get." I point to the robonoids. "Help I can make using these little guys."

Her face doesn't change through my explanation, staying the same neutral firm look about it and it doesn't look like she's going to change.

The others look back and forth between us with nervous clearly plastered about them, worried about the potential argument or fight that the two of us could get into.

I continue to stand in front of the robonoids, my body acting as their defense as I remain firmly in place, my face not betraying me in the slightest as we stare each other down.

"Crap." I suddenly say as I remember something.

"What's wrong?" Stevens asks.

"She took my gun." I say sadly.

 **A small cliffhanger, but nothing too major. I kind of liked how this turned out and it was exciting have Marcus catch his first glimpse of the ever interesting Peridot. Seriously, rewatching the episode and seeing how she was when we first saw her to how she is now is crazy and awesome, you know.**

 **There isn't much more for me to say at this point so I'll go ahead and wish you guys good health, luck, and have fun reading.**


	28. 26 Research and Development

It's been about a weeks and it took some convincing but the gems conceded to let me keep the little robots for research and possibly for me to use them to my own ends. If I can use that liquid they sprayed out to repair the Homeworld warp pad to suit my own needs, I may be able to change them around to benefit me even more. I wasn't allowed to take them back to the temple until I deactivate them or find some way to mask their signal. I had to get a sleeping bag so I can sleep here and make sure that these things don't do anything incriminating or fall off the Galaxy warp. From what I remember from the screen that Peridot was using, I saw wavelength signals on it that could mean possibly some kind of communication factor. I had Steven and Pearl bring me some of my gear or go out and buy me some stuff so I could work on my project at the Galaxy warp so I could start tinkering with them. Garnet and Amethyst didn't help because Garnet was still iffy with them and preferred to break them, and Amethyst was lazy about I, much to my annoyance but I focused more of my attention to my project.

I already took a microscope to the goo that they shot out to find out what exactly it was so that way I have an idea of what is it that stuff can do. The majority of the goo is made out of some sort of viscous liquid so it can help latch onto stuff for the other thing it's made of to work. The other piece of the goo is actually composed of thousands of microscopic nanobots that can come together to do what their told by their carrier, aka the robonoids. Meaning if I can send orders to the mini robots, they'll tell the goo inside of them to do what they want them to do and in turn, what I want them to do. Since I only have a limited number of active robonoids, as Peridot called them, for me to work with, I grabbed the ones that were hit with her EMP explosive and decided to dissect them myself.

Or I would have if they didn't blow up into that goo crap when I tried to pry open one of the panels or cut a hole into it. After cleaning myself and my workstation of the stuff, I went ahead and grabbed one of the active ones so maybe I can hack into it. The little guy tried to walk off the table a couple of times but I was able to right him again and get to work. Since they have no discernible ports for me to plug into and hack it the old fashionable way, I took a small radio antenna, hooked it up to my laptop and wrote up a program to search for any sort of radio wavelengths that these things might be generating. If these guys followed Peridot using some sort of wireless signal, I can find it, hijack it, and maybe give orders to them.

"Alright, let's see what we got here. Staaay." I begin to say but I also manage to keep the little guy from falling off again. After activating the program and searching for any sort of signal, my eyes widen at the amount of signals I instantly get. None of them are of human origin that's for sure, except from my phone, instead they are all in some sort of scripture that I've never seen before. "What the—?" I question at the text but soon after, the text starts to make sense to me in a way. It's like I just know what these say right off the top of my head, even though I never learned of this stuff before. "Worry about it later. Find what I need." Looking through all the signal names, I find out that some of these signals are actually the destination points for the warp pads around me. I recognize the one that's labeled the Homeworld warp but it and like some of the others are grayed out and come off as N/A, meaning that because they are broken, I can't access them. I find three active signals that interest me to maybe work with, the pad to the temple, my phone, and the one for the robonoids. Apparently the signal is matched up for all them. "Perfect." I click on the signal.

*BEEEEP*

"Shit." I curse as a beeping noise goes off on my screen and talks about unauthorized access. A countdown goes off on my screen and tells me about a self-destruction sequence. To add to it, the robonoids on the table and around me suck in their legs and curl up. "Crap." Not wanting my only source of gem tech to be destroyed by some sort of countermeasure, I get to work in hacking the signal to allow me access to them. "C'mon c'mon c'mon." I say as I start plugging in algorithms and tearing through code to find what I need. I also ignore the sound of a warp pad activating as the timer hits 10.

"C'mon man."

' _8 seconds.'_

"Almost there."

'6 seconds.'

"What are you—?"

"Not now."

'5… 4… 3… 2…'

"Got it!" I cry out in triumph as the timer goes to just into the milliseconds under the 1 second mark. "Hahaaaa! Man that was close!"

"What was close?"

I look to the side to see the others standing there. "Hey guys. Well, if you must know, I manage to tap into the signal that these robonoids use to take orders from."

*Fwhoop*

The robot on the table jumps onto its suspended legs and stares in the direction of my laptop along with the others.

"Nice work Marcus." Pearl congratulates me with a smile.

"Nice job dude." Amethyst pats my back while Steven gives me a thumbs up.

"Now that you did, I want you to—"

"Way ahead of you Garnet." I interrupt the magenta gem as I turn back to my computer and looking at the programs or commands I can use. "Interesting. It seems when Peridot took off, she severed her connection to the robonoids right after. Most likely because she thought they would be destroyed when her EMP went off." What also sucks is that the charge she used not only disabled electronics in a small radius, but it had a small charge in it as well that completely destroyed the device itself, leaving me with nothing to use.

"Can you mask their signal?" Garnet asks me with crossed arms.

"Let me see…" I purse my lips as I sift through some of the things I can use but I smile when I find the 'status' reading for the robots. After clicking on it, I find an extensive list of all the robonoids Peridot brought with her to the planet. As I remember her saying, I count all 79 here, 76 of them reading active but 3 reading destroyed. "I got something." I say outloud and start hacking in. "The robonoids have status readings on them. From all the ones that Peridot and I destroyed, we have all of them here. I don't have to mask their signal." I look to Garnet with a smile. "I just have to fake their deaths."

"Hmmmm," Garnet thinks on the action I am proposing. The others look to her as well as she thinks on the matter. After a few moments of thinking, she answers. "Do it. As long as you're sure that Homeworld won't know you're using them or where we are."

"Got it." I say with a nod. It takes me a moment or two but I manage to hack into the statuses of the robonoids and switch them all to destroyed. I also hide the signal of these robots so that way if anyone else can pick up their signal, it won't show up at all. Only my laptop for now can pick up their wireless signal so I'll be able to authorize who or what other devices can be hooked up to them. I also password locked them too just as a precaution as well. "There. Everything's set Garnet. No one else should be able to access these little guys or check their status since I code-locked them. I changed them to being destroyed so unless someone actively sees them walking around, they'll believe their destroyed."

"Good. Good." She nods her head and relaxes at the news. "I'm sorry if I've been a little… blunt with you about these little guys." She tells me as she picks one of them off the ground, who crawls along her arm and stands on her shoulder. "We just can't take the chance of Homeworld finding out we're still here."

" No no. I get it. Just… thanks for giving me the chance to work on them." I give her my understanding of the situation. I'm still not a hundred percent sure on the whole Homeworld biz but if they are still freaked out about it, I can at least the hint.

"Thanks Marcus." She replies the thanks with a nod.

"Sooo," I look at Steven as proceeds to poke at the robonoid on the table. "What can you do with these little guys?"

"Well, let's see." I say as I swing back around to my computer. "I've got multiple simple commands for me to use, such as holding position, following, deactivate, activate, I can tell them to go to a specific position, attack or telling them to fix a specific item or not."

"So, on top of being able to fix the warp pads, they can fix anything?" Pearl asks me as she leans into the screen to look at the commands.

"Mmmmm, in theory. Look at this." I indicate to specific area for Pearl to look at as Steven plays around with the robonoid with Amethyst. "This 'fix' command has a subfield." I click on it and it takes me to a new field to work with. There is only one pre-set object that the robonoids could repair and it's the warp pads. "See this?" I point to it as Garnet leans in as well. I click on the set and a whole mess of data flows forth onto my screen. "Peridot only inputted one object for these little guys to fix and that's a warp pad. As you can see here, all data presented to us is the dimensions of the warp pads, what their supposed to look like, how they work and so on. If I can get the exact specifications of any item in question, I'm sure I can fix just about anything."

"Amazing." Pearl says in awe at the idea. "I can't believe just how much gem technology has advanced." She says as she picks the one off of Garnets shoulder and examines it. "We never had anything like this before during the war."

"That's right." Garnet agrees.

"Well, any form of technological advancement can occur if enough time has passed." I comment. As I go back to my computer and back out, I find another function I should take advantage of. I pull out my phone and turn back. "Hey Pearl."

"Huh?"

In a flash of light, I take a picture of her using my phone. The flash blinds her for a sec and her body tenses up, causing her to drop the robonoid to the ground, who Garnet catches easily. "Garnet." I turn to her, who carries the robonoid in one hand and flashes me a peace sign with the other hand while her face remains the same neutral way. With another flash, I take her picture as well. Next, I swing myself around and aim for the other two. "Amethyst! Steven!" I call to them as they stop playing with the other robonoids. "Say cheese."

"Cheeeese!" They say with a smile towards me.

I tap the button again and another flash goes off on them as well, capturing their images. "Perfect." I say and after I quickly snap a picture of myself, I swing back to my computer.

"Explain to me why you blinded us." Pearl demands of me as she rubs her eyes.

"Speak for yourself." Garnet comments with a smile as she adjusts her visor.

"This." I plug in my phone to my computer and upload the pictures I took. Once there, I transfer the pictures to the databanks of the robonoids in a specific area. "The robonoids also have a facial recognition software. By taking our pictures and uploading them, I can set the people for them to be followed, protected, or be regarded as allies or enemies. Like so." I explain and set the images of Steven and Amethyst to hostile and Garnet, Pearl and myself to friendly. As soon as I click enter, the robonoids around Steven and Amethyst turn their attention to the two.

"What are you looking at?" She asks them. As a response, they all open the compartment for their nozzles and aim at them.

"Aaaaahhh!" Steven immediately bolts as they turn to him. Half of them go after him while the rest stay with Amethyst.

"Oh c'mon Steven! What are they going to— Goooohh!" Her statement is cut off as she gets a face full of their goo blasts and they continue to spray her, eventually making her fall to the ground as they surround her and coat her several times over.

I laugh loudly at the scene while Pearl smiles and shakes her head, and Garnet lightly chuckles.

"Ha ha… nice." She brings her hand up and we high five when I come down from my laughing fit.

"While it is funny, can you please stop this? I don't them to make a mess." Pearl asks of me.

"Yeah yeah." I say nonchalantly and go back to the computer. After changing everyone to friendly, the robonoids go back to milling about and Steven takes a break from running around. "Go make sure Amethyst isn't dead." I say to Garnet.

"You got it." She replies and walks over to the pile of goo with the purple gem in the center.

"So anything else you can do with them?" Pearl asks me.

"Weelllll," I draw it out as I look at the functions again. "You know how they explode into that repair goo whenever too much stress is placed on them?" I ask her. Steven walks up and nods along with her to the question. "Turns out it's another countermeasure they posses. In order to prevent them from being taken by any enemies and tampered with, their mechanics are completely liquefied to prevent their enemies from fixing them back up and used against them." I smile as I watch the little guys walk around. One even jumps onto the table and crawls on my shoulder. "But they weren't thorough enough." I say as I pat the robot.

"Very nice work Marcus."

"Thank you Pearl." I reply to her thanks.

"Pah! Gah! Pft! Pfffftt!" Amethyst coughs as Garnet finally pulls her out of the goo. "Not cool man!" She angrily yells to me while pointing.

"Yeah," I say with a faraway look. "But it was fun." She grumbles a little as she walks over to the warp pad.

"It's getting late. We should probably turn in." Garnet says as she walks with Amethyst to the warp pad home. "Come along Steven."

"Coming!" He calls out and jogs over to them.

"You coming Marcus?" Pearl asks me.

"Nah, you guys go on. I'm gonna finish coding, programming and linking a few things before I turn in." I inform them.

"Alright then." She nods and walks to the others on the pad. "Don't stay up too late."

"Sure."

"Oh and Marcus." I look back to Garnet, "You can bring them back to the temple and work there when your done."

I smile at the news, "Thanks Garnet!"

"See you back home." She says and activates the warp pad.

"Bye!" Steven calls out as they all sent away.

Even though they are gone, I go ahead and wave to where they were at. Now that I'm alone again, I grab the robonoid on my shoulder and place him on the table. "Alright little guy…" I lean back and pop my fingers to loosen them up as well as my neck and back. I stare intently at my companion. "Let's get to work."

"…"

He stares at me without a care.

 **Another chapter of my own instead of focusing on the show? I think this one was good. A little short in my opinion but the last one I did when Marcus was recovering was iffy to me at the time but this one I felt somewhat more comfortable with considering its Marcus doing his own form of research. Like before, this was originally supposed to be the next chapter but I guess I wanted to at least show some sort of progress happen with the robonoids. Remember that because he is his mother's son that his intelligence is far greater than most humans would be. He inherited her intelligence and the plans for gem tech from his mother, as well as their language you know. I tried to be as real and authentic as I can as well as trying to make Marcus's work seem legit. I hope I did well on it.**

 **I also did this in almost one sitting so I may have been a little tired at some points so I'm sure you caught some errors here and there. I've also been trying to work on my sleep schedule so my tiredness is all over the place too.**

 **As always, good luck and have fun reading.**


	29. 27 Alone Together

Well to say things are looking up would be an understatement. Considering I now have access to prime modernized gem technology, my knowledge of gem tech is further increased because of it and it gives me an idea of what to expect in the future should I have to deal with more gem tech. From what I remember, I still have the replicator in storage so if I start to lose too many of my robonoids, I'll have the ability to make more of them. I've got some ideas on what I can do to make extensive use of these little guys but first I need to start putting in a lot of data for them.

And I mean 'a lot' of data. For the items I have in question, I need to do what it is that Peridot did for the warp pad and start plugging in all the data of what those items consist of. From dimensions to sizes, their composition, how their made, how some things go together, I also need to upload pictures and images of the items in question so that way the robonoids can properly make the repairs or creations if they have an actual representation. The warp pad data was very in-depth so they didn't need to upload an image to make it easier for them.

That's what I've been doing the last few days. I've been coding and transferring data as much as I can so I can go ahead and get started. I've got a good majority of the stuff down but I still need to code a lot more. As I was going out earlier today to get some fresh air, I bumped into Jenny, who gave me a card for a rave that she and bunch of her friends were planning to have in some broken down warehouse. She said Sour Cream was going to DJ and that it was going to be fun. I wasn't too sure about the while situation so I said maybe I'll do it but not 100 percent. I also made the excuse that I was working on something that needed my attention and hoed that she would understand. She was cool with it and wished me luck on what it is that I had to do. Social scenes still aren't my preference but we'll see if whether or not I'm able to go.

Still despite that, I also found someone else to help with my work. When Connie came over to hang out with Steven, she was amazed at the tech I got and offered to help with the data input.

Who would have thought that a girl like her was good with coding too. I knew she was smart and intelligent in so many ways but damn does she impress me just the same as Steven.

Now I'm sitting here on the counter island and plugging in the dimensions of a gun barrel into my computer while the others are moving about and Steven is off playing with Connie.

"I still don't see why you didn't want to try your hand at fusing." Pearl asks me out of left field.

"I'll admit it, I am curious what fusing with you would look like." Garnet adds.

"Haaaaa," I breathe out, "And I told you guys before: just like with shape shifting, I don't feel comfortable with altering my body in any sort of way and that goes with fusing as well." I calmly explain to them while I continue typing. Earlier today the gems tried to teach Steven how to fuse and while the kid was enthusiastic, he didn't exactly get the moves right and either he didn't understand one thing or another, it was his size that was also detrimental to his progress as well. Yes I am taller than him and am on par with the others to the point that I could probably fuse, there is one other thing that I'm kind of scared to do as well. "Plus I don't like the idea of merging my subconscious mind with another thank you very much."

"So? Are things really that bad?"

I fingers stop typing in mid-air at Amethyst's question. Slowly, I look at Pearl to see a look of being worried plastered on it. I told her about a moment of my past, one that set me on the path I walk today. Other moments aren't really… "I'd… rather not risk it." I say hesitantly. Thankfully, after the awkward silence of my words, they decided to let it go and I'm happy with that. While it's true that I'm sure the gems have seen things as well, probably even worse than mine, I don't want to take the chance on it. Plus if I'm being honest, the way how they were dancing to fuse were a bit… explicit in my own mind. Then again I have the mind of a teenager so while the gem side of my intelligence is awesome, I hope the way I was seeing those dances weren't as… crazy and suggestive as I made them out to be. To get my mind off the subject, I go back to coding the barrel. Everything runs smoothly so far, "Damnit." At least until I run into a problem as I lightly curse and place my head on the counter in frustration.

"Something wrong?" I hear Pearl asks me.

"Yeah… uhhhh." I groan as I wave a hand to my computer. "I also need to add the striations of the gun barrel into the data as well but I'm having some difficulty actually putting it into here."

"Yeesss, the spiral pattern inside the firearms barrels that allows the bullet to fly faster and easier through the air. I can imagine that would be a bit difficult in putting to numbers." She says.

"Yep." I say in a sulking tone.

"Anything we can do to help?" I turn to Garnet at her question to see all three gems standing close to me. I smile at their willingness to help.

"Thanks guys. I appreciate the help but unless you have extensive knowledge of coding in computers, then you won't be of much help." I sadly tell them and it's true. While gems like Pearl are a bit handy when it comes to mechanics or physical constructs, this isn't physical and I need be precise with the data input and how things need to be or else when they decide to fix what I want them to fix, it'll come out wrong. They look away sadly at not being able to help now. "Ahh, don't worry. I'm sure I'll have something I'll need help with soon. At one point I'm sure I'll need help picking up and delivering some supplies to where my house will be. For now, I'll handle the technical details but by then you can help."

"No problem." Garnet answers and the others nod. With their sadness alleviated, I go back to working on my computer. Right now I've also shut down the majority of the robonoids and placed them in a corner so that way they don't go wandering off and I can keep track of them. I've only got a few walking about and doing their own things.

"Hey guys!" The new voice tears me from my work and everyone in the house shifts their attention to the source. A tall dark skinned woman with a large amount of poofy curly hair wearing two different shirts and really short shorts stands in front of the door. She stands there staring at us with an immense smile on her face while the rest of us are confused. Well, not me confused, I'm more cautious right now because I'm reaching under the counter to grab a Mac-10 I have strapped under it. "It's me."

"…" I start peeling the tape off.

"Steven!... and Connie!"

Okay, that gets a reaction out of us. We all widen our eyes in surprise. At first I call bullshit on it, except when I spot the gem in the middle of her slender sto-

And that's as far as I get before I pass out.

* * *

*Thud*

Everyone moves their attention from the human fusion to the passed out hybrid that falls off the stool. No one says anything at the action, except for Stevonnie the fusion who calmly walks over to the sink, fills a cup of water, takes a sip… and dumps the rest of it onto the passed out teenager.

"Wha! Oh! Ha! Who's that?! What happened?!" Marcus calls out hysterically as he jumps up and aims his Mac-10 all over the place.

"You passed out." Stevonnie tells him as she places the cup back into the sink.

"Oh… okay." He manages to say through his stunned and stumped self. After wiping as much water as he can off himself, he regains his seat, places the SMG back under the counter and stares back at the tall woman before him. "Uhhhhhhhh… Uhhh?" He groans out incoherently, unsure of what to say or ask as he waves his hand up and down the general direction of Stevonnie."

"Pretty cool, right?" She says with a smile of confidence.

"He fused? With his friend Connie?" Pearl asks to no one in particular. At this point she and everyone else are more or less surprised about what this turn of events for the human gem when his earlier efforts of fusion were unsuccessful. Even more so considering its with a full-fledged human.

"Hahaha ha, guys, look at Garnet." Amethyst leans over to Pearl and Marcus and loudly whispers to them while smiling. True to her amusement, Garnet is standing there with her hands clasped in front of her face with a very wide very toothy chesire smile adorning her face. The thousands of years old gems aren't really surprised at her enthusiasm of the situation but Marcus is more than a little creeped out considering this is about as much emotion beside anger and frustration that he's seen the stoic gem display since he's joined the Crystal Gems.

"This is unprecedented." Pearl says and begins to examine Stevonnie multiple angles. "A gem fusing with a human being?" She asks as she examines Stevonnie's arms and legs before finishing off by looking at her in crouched position. "It's impossible!" She blurts out in surprise as she stands back up She then looks away while cupping her face with a hand. "Or at the very least inappropriate."

"Yeah uhhh… yeah…. I don't… huh." Marcus sort of blubbers a bit as he scratches his head, his mind still trying to catch up to what's going on before him.

"Wow!" Amethyst voices her excitement of the situation as she laughs a bit. "You two look great together! How does it feel Steven? Connie? ... Stevonnie?" Since their isn't an actual gem name for them, Amethyst just goes ahead and calls them a name that's a mix of the two who fused.

"It feels amazing!" Stevonnie voices her happiness at the feeling she's having about being a fusion.

"Yes. Well, I'm glad you're enjoying yourselves, but you two should un-fuse this instant." Pearl proposes, clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing. It was one thing for her to think when Steven could have fused with one of the gems but fusing with a full human? That's something that Pearl is both confused and uncomfortable with.

"Wait. What?" Stevonnie however is a bit reluctant with the idea of un-fusing so soon. "Pearl. You were so worried Steven wouldn't be able to do this. Aren't you proud of him?" She asks the pale gem in an almost sad and slightly hurt tone.

"Of… course I am! I—" Pearl slightly stammers out but loses what she's going to say. She turns back to Garnet with a worried look on her face. "Garnet, help me out here."

"Stevonnie." Garnet says seriously as she walks up to Stevonnie while Amethyst and Pearl back away to Marcus, who is still staring with wide eyes. "Listen to me." She cups Stevonnie's face with her hands. "You are not two people. And you are not one person. You... are an experience!" She says as her voice begins to increase in tempo. "Make sure you're a good experience. Now... Go!... Have!... Fun!" She finishes saying loudly with a loud grin on her face.

"Yeah!" Stevonnie cheers and bounds out the door. "Thanks Garnet!" She calls back as she bounds down the stairs and out of sight.

"Haaaaa… they grow up so fast." Garnet sighs and says with a motherly look about her.

"Wait, wait. We're just going to let them go out like that? Without a care or a word of warning about what could happen?" Marcus asks incredulously. He's still a little mind-blown per say about the whole thing but now that the subject of everyone's attention is gone, he's a bit more level-headed.

No one says anything to his question. The gems all look to each other separately at first before they look back to Marcus. "Yeah, pretty much." Garnet says simply before she sits down on the couch and reads a magazine. The others shrug and start going about their own tasks as well.

"… Okay then." Marcus resigns himself to saying and turns back to typing on his computer. Since the others aren't too worried about what it is that Stevonnie will do, Marcus sees no harm in it and resumes his work.

A few minutes pass, silence taking over the small house with the occasional sound of everyone doing their own thing: The sound of a page rustling as Garnet looks at her reading material, the sound of Amethyst chugging a 3-liter bottle of soda, Pearl examining and placing attachments on the Macmillan Tac-50 sniper rifle, and the continuous 'clicking' sounds of Marcus's laptop. All is right in their own little world.

"WE LET THEM GO OUT WITH ANY WARNING WHATSOEVER!"

*Bang*

"Pah! *Cough*Cough*"

At least until Marcus screams loudly, resulting in Pearl accidentally discharging her rifle into the floor and Amethyst coughing up her soda as it splashes all over her.

"What?" Garnet asks nonchalantly, not bothered by Marcus's outburst as the human-gem starts pacing around.

"We…! Let them go out into the world without any warning whatsoever! Who knows what sort of trouble they could get in since you told them to go have fun!" Marcus says loudly and in a scared tone, clearly distraught about the outcomes.

"What are you talking about Marcus?" Pearl asks him as she places the rifle down, more than a little annoyed at having to accidentally discharge her weapon.

"What am I talking about?! Don't you get it! You told them to have fun when they don't know what's out there! AND WORSE… She's hot!"

"…" The others look at him with confused looks as what he said finally catches up to his brain.

"Oh my god I can't believe I just said that." He mutters to himself as he slams his head down onto the counter.

"Uhhhh, can you clarify?" Pearl asks.

"Clarify? We just let a hot teenager go out into the world without a warning and encouraged her- he- Argh! Them! To go have fun. To teenage boys she's eye-candy and ripe for the picking!" He explains to them with a look of horror on his face.

"Oh c'mon Marcus." Amethyst says as she goes to the sink and wets a towel to clean herself of the sticky soda. "You're a teenage boy." She starts wiping her face. "If other teenagers think like you, then I'm sure you have nothing to worry about." She says with a slightly muffled voice.

*SLAM*

Everyone jumps as they look to see that Marcus is gone and the front door is almost completely torn off its hinges from being opened to hard.

"What'd I say?" Amethyst asks outloud, oblivious to the significance of what she said.

No one says anything or bother going after the hysterical human, instead they watch as the few robonoids that Marcus left on walk around. One walks over to where Pearl shot the floor and repairs it easily, and the other two go over to the door where one pushes the door and the other sprays the hinges, repairing and reattaching them to the door. They close the door and continue roaming around.

"… He does good work." Garnet comments about Marcus's work on the robonoids. The others nod in agreement and continue what they were doing.

* * *

"Alright alright alright. Where where where did they go?" I quickly say to myself as I run along the sand. I know what I'm thinking and when it comes to women, I don't like the idea of Stevonnie being… taken advantage of. And I mean 'murderous' don't like the idea of. Right now my top priority is to find her and hopefully keep an eye on her to make sure no one tries anything. _'I'll be damned if I let anything bad happen.'_ As soon as I made my way down the stairs, I immediately found the footprints and took off after her. To my surprise, Stevonnie really booked it after she left the house and I'm surprised at the distance she put out. As I continue to make my way along the tracks, I also find the tracks moving in different directions but also hand prints to accompany them as well. _'If I had to guess, she was doing some cartwheels in her excitement.'_

Before long as I continue to follow the tracks, I find myself standing off the edge of a cliff and looking at the water below. "Okay…" I say warily, "I don't see any blood, so I hope to hell and back that she didn't get hurt falling into the water." With nothing else for me to do, I decide to head back to the edge of the beach between the sand and sea wall to see if there are any tracks leading off into the city. It doesn't take me long until I find the tracks I need. At first I could consider the foot tracks as possibly someone else's from earlier but when I see the fresh water on the prints and the droplets of water around the footsteps, chances are it's Stevonnie. Following the bits of wet sand footprints along the concrete floor leads me to the Big Donut. Without wasting any time, I burst through the glass door and look for any signs of Stevonnie.

"Oh! H-hey Marcus. What's going o-?"

"Shh! Shut up for a second." I quickly shush Sadie and see the puddle of water in front of the counter.

' _No doubt about it. She was here.'_ I look up to see both Sadie and Lars with blushes on their faces but I ignore it and ask my questions. "Have you guys seen a possibly wet woman come by here? Tall, dark skinned, insanely poofy long hair, wearing two shirts, red and blue, wearing shorts and no shoes?" I give the best description I can of Stevonnie to them.

"What do you want with her?!" Lars tells me sternly as he slams both his hands on the counter.

Unfortunately for him, I'm in no mood for games. I grab him by the shirt and pull half his body onto the counter close to my face. "Look Lars, I don't have time for your crap now I know she was here but I also want to know where she went. Where. Did. She go?" I ask him very sternly.

"She uhhh, she bought two donuts and left. Went to the right out the door." Sadie manages to answer before I get even more physical with the lanky teen.

"Thanks Sadie." I thank her and let the guy go.

"Oof!" Who grunts as the top half of his body falls onto the floor and the bottom half stays on the counter.

Without another word, I leave the store and take off in the direction she said Stevonnie went. Now at this point, I can't track her anymore because all the sand and water she had on her has slipped off.

For the next fifteen minutes, my search for the human fusion comes up empty. With nothing else to go on, I sit down on a bench nearby so I can think a bit more clearly on what my next action is. _'Okay… Her trail ran cold after she left the donut shop. Think, where could she have gone after she got her food?'_ I take a bite of the donut and continue to contemplate. _'She might have been a little winded and tired after all the running and cart wheeling she did. Plus her excitement might have waned on her too so she could have stopped to take breather as we—'_ I stop thinking as I go to take another bite of the donut in my hand… that I just found. I look at the donut in front of my open mouth and gently place it back down on the bag. As I place the donut down, I see the bag is from the Big Donut and the bags slightly wet. "Huh, well that was easy." _'Alright, so she was here. Now maybe I can find something else that could lead me to her.'_ I quickly glance around for anything that seems of interest that Stevonnie could have gone to. "Hmmmm… huh?" I begin to hum but when my foot steps on something papery, I look down and see another of those cards for the rave that Jenny gave me earlier today. "Oh right. I forgot this was happening… wait…" I comment about the party at first but if this was here, and so was Stevonnie, then chances are—

"Oh fuck!" I curse loudly and take off towards the warehouse, leaving the card to billow back and forth as it gently falls down to the ground.

* * *

"Damn." I curse under my breath as I stare at the massive party happening before me. I was able to find the warehouse that the rave was taking place in. It wasn't that hard, even with the address on the card, but all I had to do was find the broken wall in the side of a warehouse that was booming loudly with epileptic inducing lights and loud music. I immediately crawled up the small hill and peeked in through the broken wall to try to find Stevonnie. I see over a dozen people here on the dance floor, some I recognize and others just seem shady and look to be having too much fun. Nonetheless, I see Ronaldo, Jenny, and Buck having fun on the dance floor while Sour Cream is DJing on the elevated area. "Alright, so far there's nothing that indicates that Stevonnie was here. Good, I'd hate to see her involved with— Wait…" I start to have hope that Stevonnie isn't here but my stomach drops as I spot her pressed up against a wall with another guy next to her. The guy immediately puts a bad taste in my mouth and the way how he's leaning in and the carefree look he has about him, it doesn't look good, nor does the uncomfortable look I see on Stevonnie's face. "I don't think so." I mutter myself and jump up onto the dance floor before I maneuver my way through the floor towards her as I catch a bit of their conversation.

"No one is crazy. I just don't like feeling alone here!" She sternly tells the guy.

"If you're so lonely, then dance with me!" The guy proposes to her. _'Yeah, I don't think so.'_

"Stevonnie, hey." I quickly cut in so she can see that it's me.

"Hey buddy! I was the one—"

"Ugh! Fine." Before the guy could say anything else, Stevonnie interrupts him and glares at the guy past me. "You wanna dance? Let's go." She grabs his hand and just before she leaves, she looks back to me. "Stay here. I'll only be a sec." She tells me with a sly smile before pulling the confused teen away.

"Wait! Stevonnie I—… Ohhhhhh, be careful." I mutter under my breath as I watch them. _'They were probably talking before I got here. Whatever that guy said, it must've hit a nerve with her.'_ I think as I rub my brow in frustration at the situation.

"Marcus, hey!"

"'Sup bro."

Before I can contemplate anymore, a new set of voices catch my attention and I see its Buck and Jenny greeting me. "Oh. Hey guys."

"I'm so glad you could make!" Jenny says with a beaming smile. "How's it going for you so far?" She asks.

"Well, it's alright. I'm not really the one for these types of settings but my friend over there really wanted to come so I'm here to watch out you know." I make up an excuse. Technically it's somewhat true since Stevonnie did come here to have fun but it's just that I wasn't there when she agreed to it. Now I'm just the lookout for danger basically.

"Oh, which friend?" Jenny asks. I nod my head over in Stevonnie's direction and I blanch a little at the 'dancing' she's doing. "O-oh. H-her?" She questions hesitantly. "That's… you friend?" She asks in a disheartened voice.

I look at her curiously as I try to make sense of her hesitation but then it hits me. _'Is… is she… jealous of Stevonnie?'_ I shake my head of the thought and try to alleviate her mind. "Relax. She's a cousin of mine that wasn't sure about coming alone. So I offered bring her and make sure everything is alright." I take a quick glance at her unique dancing style and shake my head. "Evidently, she's starting to come out of her shell."

"Oh! That's good!" Jenny says with a bit more enthusiasm and happiness than originally intended. Apparently Buck didn't miss it as well and raises an eyebrow in her direction.

With a smile, I push myself off the wall and lean in closer to her. "Jenny… are you jealous?" I ask the question straight forward.

"What?!" She asks out loud in surprise. "Wha— No! What ever gave you that idea?!" She asks me hysterically with a small bit of sweat start to trickle down her forehead.

Before I can answer, I spot the gem Stevonnie has start to glow and in a flash, she disappears and Connie and Steven un-fuse, forcing them to the ground. "Guys!" I call out loudly and sprint to them. The flash was enough to get everyone's attention because now all eyes are on the two kids. I push past a big guy a bit rough as the teen that Stevonnie pulled onto the dance floor flees, blue in the face. "Guys! Guys! You two okay?" I quickly ask as I slide next to them. The both of them look a little disoriented about the whole thing but nonetheless alright.

"We're back." Steven says as he sits up.

He nor Connie acknowledge me at first but to my slight confusion, she begins to laugh nervously before her laughs turn to hysterically. Before I can question why she's laughing so happily, I see Steven stare for a moment at her before he too starts laughing as well. The two of them stand up and continue to laugh as Sour Cream cheers and starts throwing glow sticks at us. I bring my hand up to keep a few of the glow sticks from hitting me in the face but the kids aren't deterred from annoying onslaught as they continue to laugh raucously and dance in the rain of glow sticks around me. I smile at their enthusiasm as the crowd stares at us, stunned no doubt. The two of them ignore everyone and just dance around me, completely lost in their euphoria. "Hahahaha, looks like you guys are having fun?" I ask with a smirk.

"Marcus!" The two of them finally take note of me and lunge themselves onto me.

"Oooh! Hahahaaa, okay okay. Yes, yes it's me." I chuckle as I return the hug they're giving me.

"Marcus! This was so much fun! The feeling was awesome and I felt so alive and free! Oh thank you for letting us go out and have fun." Connie tells me her experience loudly and with much enthusiasm after the two of them detach from me and she hugs me again.

"Heh, well I'm glad to see that the two of you had fun."

"Now I know why the gems wanted us to fuse in the first place." Steven adds as Connie lets go.

"Yeah, I guess from what you told me, it was a good experience." I say with a smile. My smile however turns into a slight frown as I remember the look they had on themselves when I got here. "So it was all good?" I ask them, making sure to make sure that the skepticism in my voice is evident.

They both look at each other for a second before they smile and look to me. "Well, there were some problems…" Steven begins.

"But overall, it was so much fun." And Connie finishes.

"Hm, well I'm glad to hear that then." I say and stand up. "So I think that's enough excitement for one night. We should probably head back." I tell them and take a step away from them. "Or…" I say with a sly smile as they look at me curiously. I turn back to them, "The nights still young… and we are at a party…?" I let the question hang in the air, hoping they get what I mean. With wide smiles, they nod yes. "Well alright then. Hey, Sour Cream!" I call out before turning to the DJ table. "Turn the music back— Gah!"

"Marcus!"

Before I can finish saying what I wanted to say, I'm interrupted by a very hard punch to the face, resulting in me stumbling back as my friends call out my name in worry and surprise. My moment of me becoming dazed forces me to land and clutch hard against a table, knocking over a couple things in the process as well. "Ow." I lightly groan as I try to get my barings from the hit. My vision comes back to me as I see some guy come up to me and grab me by the collar of my shirt and bring me close to his face.

"Hey! You think you can just push me and get away with it?" The guy snarls in my face in a low gruff.

' _Crap, this was the guy I accidentally pushed in my hurry to make sure Steven and Connie were alright.'_ I think. "Listen man, I'm sorry I pushed you. I don't want any trouble—" I try to apologize but he pushes me back, where I'm grabbed from behind by two guys on each of my arms.

"Well you got trouble. Rough him up." The guy orders and before I can retort or reason with him, two other guys come up and one punches me in the face while the other goes for my stomach.

"That was for messing with our friend!" I hear one guy call out, probably one of the ones in front of me.

"Yeah! Get him!"

"Teach him a lesson!"

Some other of the guys antagonizes the beating as I'm punched repeatedly. I cough as I already start to feel a little bit of a familiar copper taste in my mouth before the guys holding my arms let me go and join in the kicking. I groan out loudly and grunt as they kick me repeatedly. _'Fuck. God this hurts… But whatever. I've taken worse. Let them feel like big men for onc-'_

"Leave him alone!"

"Get off him!"

"Ah!"

"Connie! Jenny!"

I see red as I spot Connie trying to pull one of the guys off me but it's futile as the man pushes her to ground roughly. Jenny also tries to pull one of them off me as well but the guy backhands her to ground. "Stupid! You want a piece of this?! I'll do to you a lot worse—"

"Grrrr!" I growl out as I push them off me. "Come here you son of a—!" I yell as I grab the back of the guys shirt that hit Jenny and throw him onto the table I was pushed on earlier before I slide him along the table, forcing his face into a couple coolers and a ton of food before throwing him off.

"Why you little— Guh!" The guy who pushed Connie tries to tackle me but I easily grab him by the throat and lift him off the ground. The guy struggles for a second before I take the initiative.

"Raaah!" I yell loudly and bring the guy up high in the air before choke slamming him down onto the table, breaking it into a million pieces as he makes contact with the concrete floor. Silence is the only thing in the air as everyone stares wide-eyed at me because of my action. I stare at the unconscious man in front of me before I slowly turn to the other jackasses that decided to use me as punching bag. The asshole I accidentally pushed earlier looks at me with pure rage on his face as his friends look at me with fear. "Ptoh!" I spit a small glob of blood out of my mouth before I slowly take off my jacket. I'm pretty sure they saw my guns strapped underneath my jacket because they all look even more freaked out but I pay them no mind as I stare at them with a cross look. "Steven. Connie." I call the kids name before I toss them the article of dangerous clothing. They both catch it easily before they look up at me for answers. "Keep that safe." I calmly tell them.

"Marcus," Jenny calls out my name with Sour Cream and Buck next to her, making sure she's alright. She has a slight bruise on her face but nothing that'll leave a permanent mark or require medical attention. "What are you going to do?" She asks worriedly.

The entire dance floor gives us a wide berth as both me and the four guys in front of me stare each other down. I look a little worse for wear considering the small beat down they gave me but I smirk, angering the alpha leader of my opponents.

*Crack*

*Crack*

I bring my hands up and pop my fingers while also popping the bones in my neck as well before getting into a Krav Maga Stance. I smile.

"Taking out the trash."

"RAAAHH!" The big guy yells defiantly as he charges me, his anger getting the best of him but works wonders for me. He swings left then right at my head repeatedly but I dodge them easily and follow-up with a palm heel strike to his face. He grunts as my hit attacks the bottom of his nose, forcing him to pull back. You push a person's nose back from the bottom up, it'll hurt like hell and force to eyes to start watering, which is what I just did to him. "Grrrr…" He growls lowly as he stumbles away from me. He looks at his friends for a second before gesturing to me. "Well what the hell are you waiting for?! Get him!" He orders them. They hesitate for a second before all three of them rush me. Two of them go to punch my face but I duck underneath their hits, making them fall forward behind me because of their momentum, and I come up with a knee strike to the third guy's stomach. He lets out a breath of air as my strike leaves him out of breath but I don't stop there. I grab his head with both hands and head butt him hard, disorienting him but I don't stop there as I still hold onto his head and bring his face down onto my knee. I let go of his head at the same time of the hit, making him fall onto his back from the hits. As I stand back up, I smirk to the leader before I swing myself low to the ground and leg sweep the guy coming up behind me, making him completely go upside down in mid-air. I don't let him hit the ground as I quickly follow-up with multiple strikes to his stomach and one final palm strike to his chest, sending him flying away from me in a roll.

"Gotcha!" The guy I pushed along the table earlier comes up behind me and grabs me in a bear hug, locking my arms to my sides. "Fuck him up!" He calls out to his friends as he thinks he's got me. The others rush to me in an effort to attack me when I'm vulnerable but it doesn't work. With the guy holding me, I jump into the air and kick the guys trying to attack me from the front away from me. The guy doesn't let go so I continue to use that to my advantage. I lean forward as he continues to hold me, resulting in him being lifted off the ground too. Using that, I jump up and fall back onto my holder. "Cah!" The guy coughs out as the air leaves his lungs from the drop. I swing my head back into his for good measure and he lets me go.

I quickly roll off the guy as another one try's to stop on me but instead on his friend. Another goes to step on my head but I grab his right foot inches from my face. We struggle for a few seconds but I gain the advantage as I bring my foot up and stomp right into private. "AAAAhhh!" The guy screams out in pain from the hit. I wrap my left arm around his ankle and my right arm around his left thigh before I stand up and lift him off the ground. The top half of his body lightly hits the ground but I quickly pick him back up and swing him into one of his friends, bringing the two of them to the ground on top of each other into a heap.

Now I'm given a moment to catch my breath from the fighting but the guy I landed on gets back up and charges me with anger in his eyes. "Raaagh!" He yells and goes to punch me but I sigh. Before he gets close to me, I quickly twirl myself around once until my back is to him and I swing my left arm out, clotheslining the guy right in the face. His feet go up but the rest of him stays as he lands on his back in slump.

Silence follows from the beat down. The only sounds are the groans from the guys on the ground and my slight ragged breathing. I take a deep breath with my eyes closed before I let it all out slowly. "Hmmmm… okay." I calmly say and turn to the bastard that started this all. "You wanna continue thi—Guh." I groan out as the guy hits my stomach.

"AAAAAAAHHH!" Some girls screams out loud and I hear others gasp as well. At first, I'm curious about what it is that she is screaming about, but then as I feel the sharp pain emanating from the hit, I also feel a wetness start to form. The guy sneers at me as I look down and see the guy stabbed me with a butterfly knife.

' _Wow… he stabbed me… asshole.'_ It's the only thing I can really think of the situation.

"That's what you get you stupid…" He trails off as I continue to stare the gripping knife and slowly bring my arms up wide up around me. At first he's confused but he doesn't have the chance to ask as I bring my clenched knuckles onto each side of his head. "Gaaaaahh!" He yells in pain as my attack disorients him badly. He grips his head, making him let go of the knife and giving me an opening. I grip the knife in my side using my left arm to keep it in place and give him a right hook across the face.

' _Time to finish this.'_ I think as he grunts from the hit but I backhand him with my fist using the same arm. He stumbles back but I continue to hit him again and again, forcing him further and further back. The crowd of people back up as we make our way to them but most of them move to the side and continue to get out of our way as we make our way to the other side of the warehouse. After half a dozen hits across the face, I push the guy with my left shoulder and add several repeated punches using my right arm to his gut, knocking the air out of him. I follow the last hit with a fierce uppercut, lifting him off his feet slightly as he falls back onto another table. The table can't take the weight so it easily crumbles underneath his weight. "Uhhhh." He groans out from the onslaught as he rolls around a bit. With my one free hand, I grab the guy by the collar of his shirt and lift him onto his feet while bringing my face close to his. "You had no right to attack me like that. Your friends also hurt my friends. I want to make this explicitly clear: Never hurt my friends again. Ever." I tell him in a calm stern tone in a way that makes it clear that I'm not one to fuck around with.

"Y-yeah. Yeah yeah sure." He stammers a bit in saying. His face is completely bruised up and he has a black eye, busted lip and bruises on his face.

"No. I don't think you do." I let his shirt guy and instead grab him by the throat and push him against the window. He chokes a little from my grip but I make sure he's looking directly into my eyes. "Understand… I won't allow anything to happen to my friends. And no one is going to hurt them. Especially not some self-absorbed self-inclined asshole like yourself. Do I make myself clear?"

"Gah! Y-yes! Yes! I do! Please stop!" He begs of me. I stare at his eyes to make sure that's he's not lying to my face.

"… Good." I slam him against the window and turn around to walk away from him. _'Jerk. He just had to drag this out a lot further than needed. Hate people like that. For now, I'm just gonna head home and get stitched up by nurse Pearl.'_ I smile at the thought as I take a few steps away from the guy.

The sound of rustling behind me causes me to stop and as I turn my head slightly, I look through my peripheral vision to see him picking up the metal leg of the table. I close my eyes and sigh. _'Fool.'_

"You stupid—"

He starts to say under his breath but I don't give him the chance. As he brings the leg up to strike me from behind, I twirl myself around and grab one of his wrists with my hand.

*Crack*

"Aaaahhhh!" The guy yells as I break his wrist easily. In response, he drops the table leg and backs up as he grips his broken wrist. He backs up into the window and breathes heavily because of my action. He stares at me with disbelief, shifting his view from me and my beaten form, and his broken bone. He growls out and charges at me, clearly pissed. He brings his intact fist back to punch me.

I don't give him the chance.

*CRASH*

Before he can hit me, I spin myself around and give the guy a roundhouse kick, sending him flying back as he goes through the window. He lands in an unconscious heap outside the warehouse, a gust of wind blows against my face through the broken window and I sigh. "Idiot." I comment on the guy's stupid action. He didn't need to drag this out because I pushed him, I would have let him and his guys rough me up a little just to make them feel good and because there's no way they could kill me… but when they laid a hand on my friends, that's something that I can't let stand. I don't check to see if he's alright because right now, I just want to get the hell home. Carefully, I pull out the knife in my stomach with a slight grunt. I close the knife and place it in my pocket to add to my collection so I can examine the wound. He only hit the soft flesh in my side, similar when I first got shot by an arrow, so there's not a whole lot of blood leaking from the injury. Thankfully because I kept the knife still in me, it didn't move around a lot so nothing got torn inside of me. After applying pressure to the wound using my left hand, I limp over to my friends. No one says anything as the crowd of people all part away from me as I walk past them. When I make it to all my friends, they are all no doubt stunned by the fight and all but right now I'm too tired to care. As I stand in front of Steven, I extend my free hand and he responds by giving me back my jacket. After I sling it over my shoulders, I let out of breath of air and ask, "Can we go home?"

Both Connie and Steven stare at me with wide mouth stares and they slowly nod. With their answers given, I look at Buck, Jenny and Sour Cream to see them with the same looks as Connie and Steven. I give them a nod and start making my way towards the broken wall to home with the two kids right behind me. Without a word, I silently step off the warehouse floor and limp home. "Marcus… are you… okay?" Connie asks me worriedly.

"*Sigh*… This is why I don't do party's." I state in a glum annoyed tone.

 **Alright, well… this was good. I was alright with this chapter and I hope you guys liked it too. As you may have guessed Marcus will be a little bit out of commission for his injuries so expect another set of episode skips.**

 **And before you all ask about why doesn't he use his 'healing ability' or 'use a bottle filled Rose's tears from the fountain to fix himself up' I'll explain in the next chapter but I'll mention a little here so you guys don't think I'm that dense or forgetful. He's still working on his powers so he also wants to save his ability in case of dire emergencies.**

 **And the healing tears… c'mon guys. It was OP already when I gave him his regeneration ability, can imagine how more over powered he would be if he kept a bottle on him with the healing liquid on him all the time?**

 **Plus it gives me an excuse to jump the timeline a bit more so I can get to the more juicy parts of the story. I want to get to Jail Break and I know you guys want to as well. Don't deny it.**

 **The new episode of Steven Universe kind of also enticed me to push forward a bit so please bare with me guys… please.**

 **Speaking of the new episode, it was awesome. How the characters came together, the new characters themselves, it was all so good and awesome and I couldn't help but pause every now and then and monologue out loud how Marcus would act and what he would say, contribute and so on in the episode. I love this and I'm still anxious to continue this story.**

 **Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, and as always, have fun reading.**


	30. 28 On the Run

Being laid out again still sucks.

You know, after the whole stabbing, I probably could have forced the regeneration ability to activate but from what I remember, it knocked me into some sort of comatose state that I had no control over to fix me or replenish what energy I wasted in the regeneration process. So for now I just went ahead and spent the next couple of weeks or so lying in bed, healing and inputting data on my computer.

After we dealt with the fusion issue as well, I also couldn't have helped at thinking that when the gems all fused, they required to do some sort of dance routine in order fuse and it sort of reminded me of in Dragon Ball Z when some of the fighters would do a little dance move to fuse as well, albeit sometimes it didn't work well but still.

Go figure.

In any case, I've also missed a few things but nothing I'm really angry at missing you know.

The first I missed was of Steven taking a test for the gems to prove how capable he was. Apparently before I came here to meet the gems, the gems took Steven with them to some spire building that was close to breaking and it was Steven's job to carry the artifact used in keeping the building from collapsing. He accidentally left the artifact here so the building was destroyed and that task was meant as a test for Steven. Now that he found out that it was a test, he demanded a new one for him to take so he can properly prove himself that he can go on missions. They all convened in the temple after they made their test rooms so I didn't see anything for what transpired but they were all happy… for the most part. The gems didn't seem overly happy for his success on the tests, or at the very least they seemed a little… forced with the happiness and Steven… when the others weren't around, he confided in me about what happened. They 'let' him win the test.

* * *

" _And I'm so annoyed at this point that they won't take me seriously." He grumbles to me with a saddened expression. He overheard them talking about how he needed a win in order to help gain his confidence back up considering the things he lost, especially his healing powers, who he's still sad and slightly angry about losing since I'm still laid out in bed and if he had his powers, I could be up and about right after the fight._

" _Steven," I say softly and place my hand on his shoulder. "I can understand how angry you might be at the rigged test they gave you… but can you imagine how angry and sad at themselves they would be if you got hurt 'because' of their tests? Think about it, did you fail any part of the test that would have resulted in you getting hurt?" I ask him._

 _He takes a second to think before he sighs, "I almost got crushed and couple times… and burned." He says sadly._

" _And how would they feel if their own work hurt you?" I ask him. He takes a second to think before I continue, "They shouldn't have lied to you, I'll back you up on that… but also understand how much they care about you. I can guarantee you man that if something I made got you physically or emotionally hurt, I would be very very angry with myself." I tell him matter-of-factly._

" _You would?" He asks as he looks at me._

" _Completely. Like… so much man. No joke. Kind of like when Pearl was teaching us sword fighting and she got…" I trail off as I look away, feeling a little down as I remember the whole thing._

" _But, that wasn't your fault." He tells me. "It… was mine. I was the one that distracted her." He says sadly with a downcast look._

" _Maybe so… but I saw the attack and I tried to move in and save her… and I failed." I tell him. I still remember the whole thing vividly in my head and I'm still angry at myself for being so slow. I need to reign in my shadow movement powers to make sure nothing like that happens again. "Steven," I tell the kid firmly, making him look at me. "The test may have been a sham… and it was wrong of them to lie… but learn from this." He looks at me weirdly. "The gems are willing to let you go on the mission because they still think you're able to do it. You have a lot of potential my friend." I tell him with a smile and lightly shake his shoulder. "You just don't know it yet. Oof!"_

" _Thanks Marcus." He thanks me as he hugs me, making me smile even more as I return the hug._

" _No problem man. You still have a lot going for yourself so you have plenty more chances to really prove to both yourself and the others, alright?" He pushes himself away from me and gives me a determined nod. "That's it."_

" _Marcus! Are you here?" Connie opens the door and calls out my name._

" _Up here with Steven." I call back._

" _Connie! Hey!" Steven calls out her name in happiness and jumps down the stares to greet her. "It's great to see you! But what are you doing here? I didn't know you were coming over?" He asks confused._

" _Oh I'm here to help out Marcus. He said he needed help with inputting data so I thought I'd come by and help out." She explains and looks up to me. "I'm ready."_

 _I smile at the help I'm getting. "Perfect. I've already got you set up on that laptop over there." I point to the lone computer sitting on the island kitchen counter. "There should be a note on the keypad that explains what items I need data on. Just get what you can and start plugging it in." I explain to her on what to do._

" _Hm." She agrees and goes over to the computer and turns it on._

" _Marcus. Are you here?" A new voice calls out, one that I recognize almost instantly._

" _Jenny?" I call out the name in confusion. She appears from behind the wall, carrying a small paper bag and smiles. "What are you doing here?"_

" _I brought you something to eat." She answers._

* * *

After my injuries, and my insistence to not go to the hospital, she decided to come by every few days to check and see if I was alright. I told her it was completely alright and that my friends were taking care of me; I even made the excuse that Pearl was Red Cross Certified so she knows about stitching wounds, setting bones and whatever else is need in healing the body, but Jenny would have none of it. She'd come by and give me some over the counter painkillers to stave off the pain and she even would bring me some take-out food and some donuts as well. At first I thought it was just because she was being a good friend but after the first few visits, she started staying longer and longer and made sure I was alright. From the way she sometimes stammers, the flustered look she has on at times kind of leads me to believe that she's maybe… well, the way how she acted during the rave kind of implied what it is that she thinks of me.

But as much as I'm flattered about the idea, I'm kind of on the fence considering what happened to any previous relationships I could have had. Lapis decided to fly off planet and travel the Milky Way to get home, and Pearl…

…

Yeah I don't want to open that can of worms again or the very least anytime soon.

Jenny is pretty cool, laid back, nice and understanding of a lot of things. While it is a nice idea, I can't really see myself being with anyone right now. The very least for now, I have too much on my plate to consider it.

For instance, apparently Garnet can see the future. It also explained how freaked out Steven was for a time and he was overly cautious of everything after Garnet told him something… vague. He even asked me to be absolutely careful with any guns I had lying around and to make sure they weren't loaded to avoid a misfire.

To say I was insulted was an understatement.

However after Garnet reassured the kid of the whole thing, things returned to normal and he was cool again. I wasn't really too caught up about the whole thing and didn't dwell on it. In fact, it also kind of explained a few things about her and how cryptic she was at times. Connie also came over every now and then to help me with the data, which I thanked her profusely because of it and was very grateful for the help.

Now, I have everything I need to start building my house so I went ahead and left Steven in the beach house reading some sort of comic while I left to go to my home site. Now I'm standing where I'm going to place it and visualizing the whole thing.

"Alright, the door will go here… living room, two bedrooms, restrooms, kitchen… yeah, yeah this is good." I mutter to myself as I gesture to everything in front of me. My wounds have healed fairly well so while I'm still a little tender, I'm well enough to walk now. "Alright, things are starting to come together. Now I just need to get the supplies together for them to get to work soon." I mutter to myself with a smile. As per the usual, I've kind of been laying on Steven's bed again because of my injuries so I still feel bad for taking up that spot of his. Now that I'm so close to getting my own house, this is gonna be so awesome to have. It'll be just like I'm living inside my truck again.

Except now I won't be placed in a cramped enclosure… and cold… and waking up to see hobos peering into my vehicle.

… After the construction and I fix anything else, I should upgrade the little guys with some lethal combat capabilities. Maybe add some stun non-lethal capabilities as well. Maybe take the internal electrical voltages of a stun gun and add them to the little guys.

"Hmmmm," I think as I place my hand on my chin in thought, now shifting from house construction and repair functions to actually upgrading the robonoids instead, which soon I might change to call them drones if I can get those upgrades set, maybe some flight as well. "Hm?" My thinking turns to confusion as I spot two figures running from under the cliff of where I'm standing on. Upon closer inspection, I take note that the two figures are none other than Amethyst and Steven. "Now where are you two going?" I say to myself and start walking after them.

* * *

After I followed them for a bit, and when Jenny, Buck and Sour Cream picked them which forced me to do some major parkouring to keep up with them until they dropped them off at the outskirts of the town. I followed them for a bit, and had to keep myself from laughing loudly when Steven was attacked by a raccoon he thought he befriended. It wasn't long after that they boarded a freight train to who knows where and left. I wasn't able to get on the train in time so I went back to the temple to grab one of my rides to chase them. I couldn't use my truck or my car because I needed something inconspicuous and fast too keep up with them and alright off-road so I can keep up with the train.

So now I'm following them using my motorcycle and before long, I've caught up with the train. It's been awhile since I've driven my bike but it feels good riding it again. I don't know where they're going but they didn't bother telling me or the others so maybe it's a secret. In any case, I'm doing an alright job at keeping up with the train, even if it's going far off any roads and I'm forced to go off-road. My bike isn't a full on dirt bike so the terrain is a little bumpy but I manage. Since my target is a train I don't necessarily keep right up next to the thing considering I just have to follow the tracks and I'll eventually come to the locomotive.

That however worked well to my advantage because I wasn't spotted by them when they apparently hopped off the train and I saw them walking off the tracks and roads, far away from any civilization nearby. I had shut off the engine and walked a fair distance behind them so that way I can tail them without being heard or spotted. As I was following them, the most interesting thing I took note of was the fact that they started to walk into some sort of gray canyon like area. Instead of following them directly behind them, I park my bike and walk along the top of the canyon to keep a better eye on them and so they can't see me as easily. As I was following them, the place was starting to get more and more creepier as we all made our way through it and I was getting some major gem vibes from it. As I walked along the top, I noticed the entire places walls had small body-like holes in them along columns and rows. To add to the freakiness of the whole thing, I also see these giant metal and glass machines littering the whole place. I can't tell how large they are considering the odd places they are placed in. They stand on three legs and seem to have some sort of drill like device under them so they seem to be some type of driller or excavator type machine and considering they are actually placed along the walls of the canyon and on the ground, that idea doesn't seem far off.

Despite the eeriness of the place and my description of the place, I still keep an eye on my friends as they make their way through the place. To my dismay, I don't have any of my rifles with me because I don't have anything that would be able to hide the weapon on my back since I was riding my bike. It's not like I can explain to the police why I was carrying this weapon in the open and while I can lie my way through some situations, I don't think I can lie my way through something like that.

For awhile, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary and from what I can tell it seems that Amethyst is showing Steven around the place. It's hard for me to catch what it is that their talking about but I catch a few words here and there.

I watch as Amethyst goes into one of the body holes in the walls and Steven starts talking to her inside it. From what I can tell, Amethyst actually looks sort of excited about being here if her wide smile demeanor is anything to go by. I can't help but take another look around the place and the eeriness it brings to me. _'Just what is this place Amethyst?…. And what about it makes you so happy to be here?'_ I think as I take another look at the menacing machines littering the whole place.

Suddenly the sound of a warp pad activating makes me move back behind a rock. I quickly look around for the long tube projection they make when they are used and I find it close to where the others are. Seeing who it was that activated the warp pad, I see it's Pearl. For a moment I'm relieved to see her but then this means that she knew of this place as well. _'What's going on?'_ I think to myself as I decide enough is enough and start making my way down the mountain. I don't do an airdrop like I usually do but instead I slowly slide down the walls and use the holes in the walls as footholds to make my descent much easier. I do this so I don't freak them out or interrupt whatever it is that their talking about. I come upon the second floor before I finally start to catch what it is that their talking about.

"How much did you tell him?" Pearl asks Amethyst.

"What? You mean about the bad thing? How this bad place is where bad Gems came to grow more bad Gems? Is that what you're talking about?"

"What?" I ask myself as I hear that last statement from Amethyst.

"They grew other Gems here?!" Steve asks what it is that I'm thinking about. As I look around at the walls around the entire place, seeing the shapes that they're in, I can see it now. _'Of course Homeworld didn't 'bring' their entire army here. They 'made' it here.'_ I think as I fully take into account just how many body's there are.

"Amethyst, he's not ready!" I hear Pearl tell Amethyst. I move back to the edge so I can see the conversation.

"Oh, but don't worry, Steven. Everything's just fine now." I can tell Amethyst is being sarcastic with her statement.

"Amethyst." Pearl sternly says the gems name but she ignores it.

"It all worked out. We won!" Amethyst almost yells the last part to Steven as she moves closer to him and while I see that she's smiling, I can tell she's angry about something.

"Stop." Pearl tries to stop Amethyst again but the purple gem continues to advance, ignoring her friend.

"And we shut this place down so the Earth would be safe from parasites like me!" Amethyst yells to the kid right up against him. _'Wait… parasite? This place?... She was born here.'_ I manage to come to the conclusion in my head as Pearl looks ready to blow up.

"Amethyst! That's enough!" Pearl finally stops the purple gems actions as she pushes herself between the two of them.

"Pearl?" Steven asks worriedly to the tall gem in front of him.

"Steven, I'm sorry." Pearl says sadly as she kneels in front of the kid and places her hands on his shoulders to comfort him at the sheer amount of information he just received, as well as me but they don't know I'm here. "I never wanted you to see this horrible place."

"Then why don't you just leave!?" Before I can intervene or warn her, Amethyst summons her whip and whips it around Pearl, entangling her and whipping her back against one of the machines.

"Shit Pearl!" I whisper under my breath and slide down the rocks to hopefully intervene.

"Admit it." Amethyst says as she whips Pearl but thankfully she dodges it. "I'm just an embarrassment to you!" She yells in anger to the fallen gem.

"Amethyst!" Steven runs over to the gem and tries to stop her but she simply picks him up and tosses him away behind her.

"Steven!" I call out the kids name as I jump forward, catching the kid mid-air before he hits the ground. I slide a bit as I hit the ground and look at the kid in my arms. "You alright?"

"Marcus!" He cries out my name in elations and hugs me. "I'm so glad you're here!" He lets me go. "You have to help me stop them." He says while pointing to the fight.

"But why are they fighting?" I ask him as I place him down on the ground.

"I don't know why! But we have to stop them!" He tells me with tears in his eyes and rushes to them without a care.

"Steven!" I call out the kids name again and take off after him. _'Damn, watching his family fight like that must be killing him.'_

"You guys, stop it!" Steven cries out in hopes to stop their fighting.

"Stay out of this!" Amethyst replies as she tosses her cut whip to the kid, where it wraps around his legs and makes him fall.

"Oh crap." I grunt at his predicament and slide next to him, where I pull out one of my swords and use it to slice the whip off him, which disappears right after. "You good?" I ask him to make sure he's alright. He nods yes much to my relief.

"Amethyst, stop this!" We look up to see the fight, "You can't beat me." Pearl says to kneeling purple gem as she grips her spear.

"I... don't... CARE!" Amethyst yells angrily and defiantly as she summons two whips from her gem and whips them at Pearl, which the both of them wrap around her spear. "I'm not gonna let you stand there and remind me of everything I hate about myself!" She yells and jerks the whips, sending some sort of violet beams of energy along the whips to their ends.

"Pearl!" I yell and dash forward.

"Marcus!" I hear Steven call my name but I ignore it as my power kicks in.

Just before the energy hits the spear, I move in front of Pearl and bring my sword down on the whips, severing them just before they make contact with the spear but unfortunately, it does make contact with my sword.

*BOOM*

It's a blur of motion and vertigo but I feel the weightless feeling of flying through the air and the unmistakable feel of metal that halts my motion. I grunt as I bounce off the metal machine I've seen and land on the ground in a heap. "Uhhhh." I groan as I slightly writhe on the ground.

"Marcus!" I hear Pearls voice through the haze before I'm rolled onto my back. "Are you okay?"

"Grr!" I grunt at the soreness of my back before my vision clears and I look at Pearl. "Yeah… peachy." I grunt out as I push myself into sitting up.

"What are you doing here!?" I hear Amethyst yell, looking angry at me for interfering.

"Stopping my friends from fighting… That's what I'm doing here." I tell her firmly but sternly. I don't know what hang up she's got going on about her but when it comes to attacking your own allies, that's where I draw the line. I continue to stare at her with a pissed off look on my face at her brash actions and she repeats the action… for a little bit. At least until her angry face starts to quiver and I see tears starting to form.

"I never asked for it to be this way." She chokes out, much to my surprise as we all see tears fall down her face. "I never asked to be made!" She cries out.

"Amethyst…" I hear Pearl say next to me in sadness. I look at Pearl to see the sorry look she has on her face.

"Amethyst, please, no more!" Steven moves in front of us while holding his arms out in a protective manner with tears in his eyes as well. "I know you're upset, but, I can't bear to watch you guys hurt each other." Steven basically begs Amethyst to stop her fighting. She looks saddened by the news and I see her shoulders slump a little.

*Creak*

We turn our attention away from each other as the sound of something creaking and rattling emanates near us. Looking up, my eyes widen as I spot the broken leg of the machine and because of that, plus my impact against the machine, it's starting to collapse right on us. Steven takes the initiative and summons up a protective bubble for us. _'Good, good job man.'_

"Amethyst!" I'm confused at Steven's voice at first but when I look to the side, I see the reason for his concern. I see Amethyst not in the bubble with us but outside, right in the way where the machine is falling. "Amethyst, Amethyst, Amethyst!" Steven calls out her name multiple times as for some reason she runs away from us.

"Amethyst!" I reach out in a futile attempt to grab her but I fail.

*CRASH*

Dust and dirt kicks up around us as the machine finally falls on us. After a few seconds of the creaking of metal as it settles, I push myself off from the ground and Pearl as Steven drops the bubble and runs to where he saw her run. "Amethyst! Where are you?!" Steven calls out in concern as we look around.

"Amethyst! C'mon! Tell us you're alright!" I call out as well as I look all over. I can't even see the ground for footprints because the machine kicked up so much it covered everything.

I watch as Steven runs over to a large piece of the machine that was broken off and lying against the side of the wall and looks all over it. _'What is he—'_ I begin to question but I get it as he grabs the bottom of the piece of metal and tries to move it. He grunts a bit and barely budges the thing before he gives up and turns to me with tears in his eyes. "I got you man." I quickly move up against him and grab one side of the piece and get ready. "Alright, on three. One… two… three!" I almost yell out the last part as the two of us lift the heavy machinery. The thing ways a ton but surprisingly, the two of us make some progress as we begin to tip it over. "C'mon c'mon c'mon!" I grunt out as we exert as much strength as we can to pull the piece up. Once it's over our heads, we give one last push that sends it teetering away from us but to Steven's surprise and my annoyance, it starts to move back to its original spot. "I don't… THINK SO!" I yell out angrily and deliver a strong tight fisted punch to the top most part I can reach of the machine, completely warping the metal where I strike before twisting myself around and deliver and roundhouse kick to it as well. The combined attacks put enough force on the piece of metal that finally sends it falling over its other side and away from where Steven didn't want it to be.

I look back to him to see him looking inside one of the holes that adorns the wall like so many others but this one seems a bit smaller than the rest. I peek in as well and to my relief, Amethyst is safe and sound. "Amethyst!" Steven says her name, a bit happy that he's found our friend.

"Go away. I'm bad, and you shouldn't be around me." She tells us in sad tone, not even bothering to look at us as she curles up at the back of the hole.

"What? What are you talking about?" I ask in confusion.

"Yeah Amethyst. That's ridiculous. Look, I don't know what any of this really means, but I—"

"Yeah, you don't." She interrupts him. "'Cause if you did, you wouldn't be talking to me." She says in her same sad tone.

"Well we'd know if you just— Hey!" I begin to ask her but I'm suddenly pushed back by Steven.

"Pearl, get in here." He says to gem standing next to me. "You got to help me."

"But—"

"You have to talk to her." He tells her firmly and steps out of the hole.

Pearl looks hesitant for some reason as the idea of talking to Amethyst about whatever is going on here doesn't sound too good. She turns to me, not saying anything but the look on her face speaks volumes; and its asking me what to do. "Hey, I'm in the dark here. Whatever you got going, its best to get it out now before this escalates again." I give her my advice. I know in the past the two of them haven't exactly been the super bestest of friends and tend to annoy each other but I've never seen it get so bad that they come to blows like that.

She looks down and thinks for a second before breathing in deeply and crawling in the hole with the depressed gem inside. Steven tugs on my shirt to get my attention. "C'mon." He gestures for us to move away from the hole, most likely to give the two some privacy.

"Right behind you." I say and we walk over to a boulder that's a small distance away from the others. I lean back against the rock with my arms crossed as Steven sits down and lays his back against it. "What exactly is going on?" I ask him. Right now I've got an uneasy feeling about being her but I also want some clarification. I got some idea of what's going on here but Steven was the one traveling with Amethyst and was next to her when she was explaining everything.

"Amethyst… was born here." He answers a little hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He confirms it and looks around the place. "This place is called the 'Kindergarten' and from what she said, she was born here. She never saw Homeworld like Garnet or Pearl did. This place was… all she knew of when she was born… at least until my mom and the others found her." He tells me somberly.

"Wow, that's crazy." I comment, and that's the truth. I always thought the others were from Homeworld legitimately but I guess I was wrong. If Amethyst was born here, then I wouldn't be surprised if Homeworld went ahead of schedule and tried to make more of their own. As I look up at the amount of bodies in the walls, and I remember that gem battlefield we went to before with that pyramid maze crap, they succeeded. Some shuffling makes me turn my attention to from my examination to the others. Steven and I see both Pearl and Amethyst emerge from the hole. Pearl keeps a smile on her face and Amethyst looks conflicted about something. She seems hesitant about something but before I can deduce what for, she grabs Pearl in a crushing hug. Pearl is taken aback by the gesture from the short gem but returns the gem nonetheless. I smile at the scene and tap Steven's shoulder. "See that? You did that my friend. Keep up the good work man." I compliment the kid.

"Hm, thanks Marcus." He smirks and stands up before walking over to the others. I push myself off the rock and follow him. "So, everyone happy?" He asks the two of them, who disengage the hug and look at us with a bit of embarrassment about them.

"Yes, I'd say we are." Pearl says as she looks to her fellow Crystal Gem, who nods with closed eyes.

"Yaaay! Crystal Gems forever! Now let's go home, so Steven can sleep in a bed." He announces happily and starts walking to the warp pad Pearl came in.

I chuckle at the kids enthusiasm before walking after him with the others next to me. As they all go to stand on the pad, I stop. "What's wrong?" Steven asks me.

"I almost forgot, I followed you guys here on my bike. I need to go ride it back. I'll catch you all later back at the house." I inform them and start walking away.

"Actually," Pearl begins to say, halting me, "The dimensions of your motorcycle were smaller than the width of the warp pads. I think you can bring it back here and warp to the temple with it easy, that way you won't have to waste time and resources getting back." She proposes.

"Hm, now that you mention it, I think I can make it work."

"You want us to wait for you?" Amethyst asks.

"Nah, I got this handled. Besides," I add as I look around at the machines around us, "I may want to take a look at those things too while I'm at it. Maybe I can salvage some stuff from them as well." I explain to them. These machines are still prime tech I can use so even though their deactivated, maybe I can get some ideas for something.

"What can you get from that?" Amethyst asks me in disbelief as she points to one of them attached to a wall some ways away from us.

"Well, for one, I'm partial to the drills on them. I'm thinking of an 'underground complex' for my home you know?" I tell them. The drills seem a little too big for me to use on the cliff I'm stationed on but I think on a much smaller scale I could maybe get it to work, possibly for the Robonoids too. That would be awesome.

They look at me curiously for a second before nodding, "Alright then. Don't stay out too long." Pearl tells me with a smile.

"No worries. I'll be back before you know it."

"See ya later Marcus!" Steven says to me with a hand wave.

"See ya buddy." I return it with a smile and a wave.

"Sorry again about beating you."Amethyst tells me before they leave.

"It's fine. Yeah sure. Beating me. That'll be the day." I say the last part sarcastically to myself as I look away.

"What was that!?" Amethyst asks annoyed and frustrated, apparently hearing my after comment.

"Pearl?" I quickly call her name.

"Bye!"

"Hey!" Amethyst exclaims in surprise as Pearl activates the pad, teleporting them away.

"Hahaha… haaaa… that was fun." I chuckle to myself with a smile. Now that my friends are gone I look around and find the reason for the eerie feeling I've been getting. "You can come out now!" I yell out loud as I materialize one of my swords.

At first, there's nothing but the echo of my statement but the sound of footsteps breaks through. Turning around, I see a guy walk out from behind a rock nearby and walks up to me at the base of the stairs. "Huh, so you're not stupid." He says with a smile.

"What do you want?" I ask him bluntly.

"Oh c'mon. Can't we have a civil chat and— Alright alright alright."

"I don't have time for your bull, so just tell your men to come out of hiding before I slit your throat." I interrupt him as I slide my sword against his throat, making sure it doesn't cut him but that he feels the blade and that I'm not screwing around.

"*Sigh* Fine." He begrudgingly says and raises his hand before giving a signal with it. I hear rustling around me and I glance around to see a dozen guys pop out from the top of the canyon and train their crosshairs on me while a few others come out from the rubble nearby and surround me. I don't pay them much attention or change the cross look on my face. "You know you can't win right? Not with all these guns on you." The guy tells me but I smirk.

"Maybe…" I say and pull the sword from his throat. "But I guess we'll see how things go huh?"

"Yeah, well, since you seem so fond of getting to the point, I guess you know who we are and what we're here for." He says with a slick smile but that only irks me even more.

"The Iron Kings… me." I answer.

"You got it. Now why don't you be a good boy and just come with us before things get too hairy huh?" He proposes and I chuckle.

"Now why on earth why would I do that?" I ask him with a smile. He must know how much crap he sounds like right now so he better have a damn good excuse to get me to come with him and its going to take a lot more than a few guns to get me to lay down and go with them.

"Well, for one, I don't think you can survive a firing squad," He waves to the guys around us. "And second… I don't think you want anything to happen to your friends." My eyes widen at what he's referring to, my smile turning to an open mouth surprise. _'You son of a…'_ "Ah yes. I hit something. After your little stunt at one of our warehouses, the boss decided to get some leverage on you. I mean, we know you've been hanging out with some people around that little town of yours. We saw that little girl you usually hang out with,"

' _Connie! You better not—'_

"Then theirs those teenagers you hang out with, that pale guy with the weird haircut, sunglasses and that cute number as well," He tells me with an unwavering smile.

My eyes widen more and I take a step back, my breath being a bit more labored at the people he's talking about. _'Sour Cream and Buck… Jenny.'_ I tighten the grip on my sword, my knuckles turning white.

"And wasn't there this pale chick to—!"

He doesn't have the chance to finish as I shove my sword into his stomach. He looks shocked at my bold move but I'm utterly pissed right now. "You feel that?" I ask quietly as I stare into his eyes. I shove the sword further in and pull it up slightly, making him gag as I see some blood start to drip from his mouth. "This is the feel… of you fucking up… So. God. Damn. Much!" I punctuate each word with more sword tugs up along him. The guy groans even more from as I tear through his body even more. I lean into his ear. "You crossed the line… when you brought my friends into this." I finish the statement by slicing the sword out the side, ending his life. I breathe heavily after killing this guy right in front of his men. They all look at me with looks of horror on their faces. The weapons they have in their hands are shaking at my display.

I stare at the men around me, the men who have been shadowing my movements and threatened my friends… my family. I look around at the place we're in and notice a couple guys are staring at the machines on the walls and the holes. _'I can't let them report back… I can't let them find out about this place… not them… not anyone.'_

"Hey!" The guys flinch at my voice. I bring out my other sword before their very eyes, making them freak out even more. "You died the second you stepped foot in this place." I declare their lives forfeit with a neutral look on my face… before it turns to anger.

"RAAAAHHH!" I yell out loud and jump towards the next guy in front of me as I bring my swords up. The look of horror is forever plastered on his face as he doesn't have the chance to fire before I bring my swords down.

 **Well, that was an ending, right?**

 **Still, I would like to apologize to everyone for this chapter. I don't know what it was but for some reason I didn't put as much work into this one as I did the ones before. In any case, as you may have guessed, the next one will be my own work so I won't have to worry about sticking to any episodes and I can go crazy with it.**

 **Also the whole Dragon ball comment at the beginning, I was debating whether to put that in 'Fusion Cuisine' or not but when I was writing it, I had completely forgotten about it and it was bugging the crap out of me. So I went ahead and placed it here for the hell of it. Hope you guys were alright with it. I'm not a major Dragon ball fan but the fusion comparison between the two was something you guys mentioned so, there you go.**

 **I should also tell you all that I've got a couple tests, a book review, and finals coming up in the next couple weeks so expect a slight delay in that time frame. However, rest assured, once classes end, I will be completely free from then till the end of January so hopefully we can expect a serious dump of chapters and progress to be made. Thank you all for your continued support and as always,**

 **Have fun reading.**

…

… **Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving because I thought I wouldn't get this out in time for before the holiday so yeah. Have a nice day everyone.**


	31. 29 A Fight for Your Life (Part 1)

**Expect some swearing. Actually, whenever the Iron Kings are involved, usually expect a slight excessiveness of cursing.**

 **With the warning given, you should have also guessed that this isn't the full chapter I had intended but since both I and some of you are anxious for more, I'm gonna go ahead and at least give this to you guys to sate you till I'm finished. Finals are still underway so that's why the delay is still taking place. Wish me luck guys and I'll do the same for you all.**

 **Now here you go.**

* * *

"Gah! *Panting* Crap. Oh god." I grunt out through ragged breathing as I trudge my way away from enemies. I clutch the wound on my left shoulder from the bullet hole but I continue to make my way away from my enemies as I hold a G36C in my left hand.

"He went this way!"

"Shit!" I curse under my breath as I push myself a little bit harder until I place myself behind a rock and take a second to catch my breath. I quickly pull out the magazine and check to see my ammo count. I have one other magazine on me and it looks like I have 12 rounds in my current one. "Damnit… Phew… their more prepared this time." I mutter.

After I charged them, they were so surprised by my bold action that it took them a few seconds to properly retaliate against me but by then, I had already slain more than a few of them. Unfortunately, while I'm fast, I'm not fast enough to dodge a bullet. One of them was lucky enough to get a hit on me and that gave them enough time to pin me down. As I was hiding behind a rock, one of them made the mistake of coming around the rock too close to me so I was able to maneuver his G3 and take it for myself, while also grabbing the pins on the frag grenades and flashbangs on his vest and pushing him onto his friends. After the explosion, I took off running injured while they were all disoriented or dead. It bought me some time but while I'm injured, not all of my pursuers were so a good chunk of them are chasing me while the rest recuperate from the flashbangs stun effect. I peak from my cover and spot the guys rounding the corner.

*Ping*

"Shit!" I curse and duck back as a round impacts the rock next to my head. I look up and see some of the guys along the edges of the ravine start to make their way along it towards me. _'Crap… if they move along it far enough, I won't have any place to hide down here. They'll literally be able to shoot down onto me. Have to take them out. Gain the high ground.'_ Looking around, I spot another drill machine above me. With a smile, I open fire on the legs of the machine. The ground chips away and loosens up, sending the machine of metal and glass fall right on me. _'Wait for it… Now!'_ I wait till the last second before the thing impacts the ground where I'm hiding, rolling far away from the spot as it immediately kicks up dirt and dust all over the place. I use my shirt as a makeshift mask as I hear many sounds of coughing from all around me. I smirk as I see the dust cloud extend all the way to the top of the ravine, obscuring my overwatchers from above. "Perfect."

"Where is he?!"

"I don't know! *Cough*Cough*"

"Well keep searching! The boss wants him alive but he didn't say in what state!"

"Dick." I comment. Grabbing the rifle in my left hand, I start scaling the rock walls to the top using the holes as places to get my grip and footing. Chunks of dust and rock are still settling all around us so they don't hear me scaling the place or my grunts of exertion. It's a little hard to scale the place considering the terrain, the gun-toting men around me, and my weakened left arm side, but I push through the pain and manage to get to the ledge of the very top.

"Where is he?!"

"I don't know! I can't see anything!"

"Well keep looking! He's down there somewhere and we need— Hey!"

"Surprise asshole!" I yell in the guys face as I grab the front of his shirt and pull him off the ledge.

"Aaaaaahhh!" The guys yells as he plummets to the bottom of the chasm.

"Hey ,what happen— You!" The other guy spots me but before he can bring his gun up to bear, I spray my gun one-handed at the guy. My rounds go all over the place around him but a couple nails him the left arm, making him drop his FAL to the ground. "Argh! Damnit." He grunts in pain as he grips his arm in pain. He looks at me with anger before he reaches back with his good arm. I sprint forward just as he's bringing it out and means to shoot me. I however grab his wrist and make him smack himself in the face with the .38 revolver, dazing him enough for me to push him away and roll up with a roundhouse kick to the side of his face, sending him falling off the cliff. Looking down, I quickly drop my G3 and pick up the FAL before sending it to semi-auto and scanning around me. I don't see anyone else on the cliff side where I am on so I start scanning the other side.

"There he is!"

"Crap." I groan as the five guys on the other side spot me and bring their guns up to bear. They immediately open fire on me, forcing me to roll to the ground and go into a prone position before taking aim at them. Because I'm a smaller target, it's harder for them to hit me but that also increases the chance for them to hit me in the face. I don't want that now do I.

I manage to steady myself despite the bullets flying over my head and take aim at my opponents.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*

I place three consecutive shots on one of the guys. I see his body jerk with each shot hitting him before he falls to the ground dead. One of the guys notices his partner dead next to him but his moment of hesitation is my opportunity to place a round into his head. "Yes."

*Voom*

"Argh." I groan as I almost feel the air current generated by a bullet wiz by my head. _'Damn. Gotta finish this soon.'_ I steady myself again and send more rounds towards my opposition. I take down two more of them before the last one moves behind a rock for cover. I keep my sights trained on the rock so I can pop him if he peeks out. I fire as I see a head peek out.

*Bang*

"Shit! God damnit!" I hear the guy yell as my shot barely misses him. "We need heavier firepower! Use the Javeli—!"

Before he can finish talking, his head moves out by mistake and I end him.

*Click*

"Crap." I'm annoyed at the empty weapon in my hand so I toss it over the edge before rolling over and grabbing the G3 from earlier. "Alright, now to take out the rest of— Ah!" I'm interrupted as the sound of a rocket blast permeates the air. From the bottom of the chasm, something blasts out from it right in front of me and goes high into the air. "What the hell…?" I ask as I stare at the object going up and up before it slows down. "Is it some sort of flare or—" My eyes widen as I see the object change paths down, towards me. "Wait, he was saying— A Javelin missile launcher!" I exclaim in surprise at the ordinance piece they just used. The missile speeds toward me quickly, making me grit my teeth. "Shit!" I curse and start sprinting away from my previous position in hopes of getting away from the point of impact.

I'm not able to.

*BOOM!*

"Aaaaarrrrgh!" I yell in pain and surprise as the explosion goes off a few feet behind me, sending tiny pieces of shrapnel and flames hitting against my back and the force of it sending me flying off the cliff. "Poh! Cah! Arh!" I grunt repeatedly as I roll and slide down the side of the chasms walls, parts of my body hitting flat parts of the rocks in the wall and making my body jerk and jolt with each hit it takes. "Oof!" I groan as I finally hit the bottom with thud and my assault rifle goes flying from my hands. "Ahhh… fuck." I groan at the amount of pain going through my body and my injured shoulder isn't help either.

"Well, well, well." _'Awww crap.'_ I mentally groan at the voice over me. Slowly I look back and see half a dozen guys standing over me. "Looks like we finally got you." The guy says smugly. I growl at the guy in front of them with gritted teeth, showing my anger toward him but it just makes him smile even wider.

"Yeah, we got you. Now can we get out of here? This place gives me the creeps." Another henchman says from the back as he glances around the place nervously.

"Not yet. He sure did a number on us. I think it's time we return the favor." He says confidently. Some murmurs of agreement emanates from the guys in the back at the idea, obviously more than happy to take payment for the trouble I've caused them in the form of extreme amounts of pain. _'Fuck. How the hell am is supposed to get out of this?'_ I think mentally as I look around for anything that could help but the only thing I can find is my rifle but it's a few feet away from me, way out of my reach. "C'mon, guys. Let's do this."

"Damn." I curse as I try to crawl away from them but I don't get far because of my beaten body.

"Where are you going buddy?" One of them asks. "We just wanna have some fun." He says with a smug smile and a chuckle as they all begin to advance on me.

' _Damnit… what the hell am I supposed to— Hm?'_ I start to think of what I can do but I soon spot a figure on top of the chasm on the left of me. I squint my eyes to try and get a good look at it but I can't from this distance. The figure aims something across from it and to my surprise, a beam of white shoots from it and impacts the opposite wall of the chasm.

"What the—?" One the guys asks in surprise at the rumbling noise as it shakes the whole place. Before they can ask questions, the impact point starts to chip away with the rocks and before we know it, an avalanche of rocks starts falling towards us. "Holy— We need to get out of here!" The guy advises himself and his friends to do.

"But what about the kid?!" Another one asks loudly.

"Fuck him! We won't be able to bring him back if we're buried alive!" The one who proposed they get the hell out of dodge gives some more sound advice to his compatriots. Small pebbles are already rolling to everyone's feet but the larger boulder chunks are still crumbling off the walls.

"Argh! Fine! Let's go before— Hey! He's getting away!" One of them finally notices me limping away from them while they were all focusing most of their attention on the breaking walls.

' _Alright, whoever that was, they were able to give me enough time to get away from those bastards. I just need to rest and get my bearings before I try to—'_ "Arrrrhhhh!" I yell loudly in pain as one of them fires at me and one of the rounds grazes my right leg. I collapse to the ground as the rumbling of the rocks gets louder and louder.

"RUN!" One of the guys yells and the snaps them out of their stupor and they begin running as more and more rocks fall towards them. A couple of them trip and get crushed by the rocks but the rest are full head-on sprinting to me.

' _Shit.'_ I curse in my head and quickly look around for anything that I might be able to use for cover from them and the avalanche of rocks. _'Perfect.'_ I think as I spot one of those body holes in the wall at level with me. I quickly scramble along the ground to my right towards the closest holes for me to take refuge in. _'C'mon c'mon c'mon!'_ I think rapidly in my head as I'm cutting it real close.

"Waitwaaiiitt!" I hear someone yell behind me but I don't bother to look as I throw myself into the hole.

"Ah!" I grunt as I slam into the very back of the hole as the place completely fills up with dirt and everything goes dark. I quickly pull the collar of my shirt up over my mouth and use it as a makeshift mask so I don't choke on the dust and dirt around me. The earth around me shakes as I continue to feel intense rumbling happen outside of my temporary confinement area. "Holy hell… *Panting* Man that was close." I breathe out as I lay against the very back of the hole. I let out a few tense breaths to calm myself of everything that has happened the last few minutes. "Aaahhhh!" I breathe out in slight discomfort as my wounds start to make themselves known to me. Pulling out my phone, I turn on the flashlight app and illuminate my hovel so I can examine myself. The shot in my shoulder isn't bleeding as much and it looks like the bullet was a through and through. That's good, that way I don't have to worry about taking the bullet out or shrapnel splintering off. I can feel bruises lining the entirety of my body from the force of the explosion that nearly killed me at the top of the chasm. Looking down, I see the round that grazed my leg only got the surface skin as it tore easily through my pants. There is only a small amount of blood so I'm in no danger of bleeding out anytime soon but damn does it hurt.

After a few moments of my self-examination, the world around me goes quiet and the dust has settled so I can breathe a little easier. "Finally." I mutter to myself and crawl forward to the thing that's blocking the hole. From the feel of it and its shape, I think it's a giant lumpy piece of the rocks that were falling and one just happened to crash itself right behind me when I was running for cover. Very carefully, I brace myself against the thing and slowly push it out of the way with a grunt. "Ngh!" I clench my teeth as I slowly but carefully push it away from me in case there's anything else on it that could collapse on me. Thankfully, all I see is sunlight around me so its clear for me to push it all the way. With a bit more exertion, I roll it away from me with a grunt, sunlight blinding me for a second as I take a moment to collect myself.

Once my eyes adjust, I look around to see the area in front of me and to my left was once clear and flat but now theirs rocks, boulders and piles of dirt littering it. A strong gust of wind flows through the canyon and carries the dust in the air away, giving me a clearer view of what happened to the others. I see some red streaks here and there so most of them must have gotten buried. There is however one body facedown close to the hole I was hiding in that looks slightly depressed on some parts of the body. _'Must have gotten crushed by rolling debris.'_ So far the whole place is deathly quiet with only the slight creaking and tumbling of rocks deeper in the canyon. "Well, I guess that's all of them… Better get started in scavenging the place… Get rid of the body's too." I tell myself and start walking to the front of the canyon where hopefully my bike is still there and all the cars these guys used to get here are. "Should also grab anything I can use to find out how—"

*SMACK*

Something swings out from behind a boulder I was walking behind and nails me right in the face, knocking me flat on my ass and dazing the complete hell out of me. I roll on the ground a few times as I instinctively bring my hands to my face. "You son of a—!"

"Pah!" I cough out as someone kicks me in the side of my stomach, resulting in pain and making me curl up a bit.

"You just had to do this the hard way… didn't you?!"

"Ah!" I yelp in pain as the guy kicks me where the bullet grazed my leg.

"Well, you know what? Fuck it." The guy says firmly and I hear shuffling sounds. After rolling onto my back, I open my eyes to see a beaten up guy standing over me, his left arm obviously broken with the way how it looks, plus the bone sticking out as well. He reaches behind him with his un-broken arm and pulls out a nickel-plated Desert Eagle .50 and aims it right at me. "The boss wants you alive… but this?" He waves his gun around, indicating the carnage that he thinks I fully caused. "No… no way. You don't deserve to live. Not after all this." He tells me with a snarl, very angry about the situation at hand. "Any last words?" He asks with a smirk.

"…" I don't give him the satisfaction of saying anything. Right now I don't see a way out of this, I can't reach for my pistols in time before he pulls the trigger and I'm not in a position to overpower him. I'm dead.

"Alright then, suit yourself."

*Click*

He pulls the hammer back on the pistol and steady's his hand. "I'm sure the boss'll be pissed… but you know what?" I close my eyes and wait for the noise. _'So this is it then? I guess it had to come at some point.'_ I hear the guy lightly chuckle. "It'll be worth it."

I clench my eyes and wait for the end. _'Goodbye my friends… At least they'll leave you alone…'_

*BANG!*

…

…

…

…

…

"Ugh…" I expected the groan to come from me, especially since I feel a wet sensation on my face, but it doesn't. Opening my eyes, I look to my left and see the spot where the bullet went through. "Uhhh…" I look up as I hear him groan again and to my surprise, he's just as surprised as me as he stares down at the tip of a spear jutting from his chest. Half the blade is seen poking out as he gurgles a bit. _'Who the…?'_

"Huuuu… Nah!" With a grunt of exertion, the person behind the spear picks the guy up and tosses him away easily. The now dead guy slides easily off the spear as it rolls away from us.

"Are you okay?"

"… PEARL?!" I ask in surprise at my friends appearance. She extends her hand to me with a smile. Despite my shock, I take the offered limb and she pulls me to my feet. "Wha- what the- what are you doing here?!" I ask confused.

"Well, you were taking an awfully long time in getting back home, so I decided to come here and see what the holdup was. And what do I find when I warp back?" She tells me as she lays her spear against her shoulder.

"Uhhhh—" I say embarrassingly.

"Several dead bodies, some craters from explosions and the sound of gunfire deeper into the Kindergarten." She answers before I can.

"Yeah, sorry." I apologize and look at the place around us. "I guess I wasn't as subtle as I thought when I was riding my bike after Amethyst and Steven. The Iron Kings tracked me here and it was only after you guys left that I called them out to deal with them here and now." I sigh and shake my head, "I had no idea that they would have brought so much to deal with me."

"Yes, and although it looks like you managed to handle yourself, somewhat, against them, you still should have asked us to help." She tells me with a frown.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I tell her with a defeated sigh. I'm not gonna try to act tough about the whole thing. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have been dead twice over she hadn't intervened. "Still, thanks for your help back there. Twice." I thank her with a tired smile.

"You're very welcome." She replies with a smile and examines the surroundings as well. "Still, it looks like that was all of them."

"Yeah, I guess it wa—"

"There he is!" A new voice interrupts me and to our surprise, a whole new squad of guys comes up and begin to aim their guns at us from across the way.

"Shit! Get out of here Pearl" I quickly tell her as I pull out one of my swords.

"What?!" She asks in surprise.

"They want me! Not you! I appreciate the help but they want me and I won't let you get hurt because of me!" I almost yell to her as the guys set up.

"And I won't abandon my allies to face their enemy's alone!" She yells back and swishes her spear around a few times before holding it firm as she aims it at our opponents.

"God dammit Pearl!" I yell and grab her shoulders, forcing her to look right at me. "I don't need you arguing with me right now! Now just do what I said and go!" I order her. _'I can fight better alone and I don't want her fighting when she doesn't even have a firearm to fight back against. I don't want her getting hurt.'_

"And I said—!" She pushes me back and starts to say with a angry look on her face.

"FIRE!"

I look to where the guys and to my relief, they aren't shooting like a firing squad at us but to my horror, they are firing a trio of RPG-7's at us. "PEARL!" I scream her name in fear as the missiles head right for our feet. I jump forward and tackle her in an effort to shield her.

Everything goes black just as the rockets make contact.

* * *

 **Welp, I think I'll go ahead and leave this here for now. Hopefully its enough to satisfy you till I get the rest finished. Sorry for the cliffhanger but with finals coming up, I can't work as much as I would have liked on this. Sorry.**

 **Still, I'm liking my chances on the finals so after that, I'll be able to devote most of my time to this so hopefully be ready for a large influx of new chapters to come up when this semester is over.**

 **Now enough about my personal life, let's talk about the new episode. It was nice and I couldn't help but snicker at some moments that happened and how the gems acted, even Greg. I won't spoil anything but it just shows how… dense… the gems kind of are when it comes to human children. Seriously, guys I hope you watched it or watch it soon. Can't wait for more. I used to keep new episodes in my DVR box to watch later whenever feel like it, but since I'm writing this, I gotta keep up on the ball you know?**

 **To add to new stuff I saw, I watched the VGA's as well. Not too hung up on the winners for their category's and such but I was mostly interested in the trailers and footage for new games. Pumped and hyped for Halo Wars 2 and Mass Effect: Andromeda.**

 **Hope this was good for you guys.**

 **And as always, have fun reading.**


	32. 30 A Fight for Our Lives (Part 2)

*BOOOOOOOMMMMM!*

With massive explosion, the two pieces of heavy ordinance impact the ground and shower the entire area where the two gems were standing in fire, shrapnel and rocks as a massive cloud of smoke kicks up.

The only noise is the sound of the six Iron King gang members coughing from the smoke and the environment trying to settle after the destruction. "*Coughing*… ugh. Man, the boss isn't gonna like this." One of the guys asks after he manages to regain his breathing.

"Let him be." One of the rocket guys says angrily. "That kid was way too dangerous to transport to him." He says firmly.

"I guess." The first one agrees albeit a bit reluctantly. After staring at the smoke cloud in front for a bit, he turns his attention to the chasm he is standing in. "What is this place?" He asks out loud.

"Who cares!" Another proclaims loudly and obviously pissed. "Let's get the hell out of here and get back home! I'm sure a lot of our boys wanted payback for that punk!" He snarls.

"He's right." Another concludes and starts walking away. "What's done is done. Now we should get back and report in." He says without looking back.

"I'm with you." Soon, the rest of the gang members start filing in behind their friend to get out of this eerie death-trap of a place. To them all, no one could have survived that sort of explosion.

"Wooooo ha ha!"

At least, no normal human could.

The group tenses up at the cheery new voice and stop in their place. Looking to where they heard it, some of them are confused to see that the voice came from the smoke cloud that had erupted from the rocket blasts. To their surprise, a figures silhouette is seen through the thick smoke.

"Phew! That was crazy!" The figure says in a peppy happy female voice and stretches her arm out as the cloud finally dissipates, giving everyone a clear view of who it is that managed to survive the blast. She stands tall, as tall as Garnet and her skin is a bit pale but with a light green color-hue to it. For a shirt, she wears a black t-shirt under a aqua-blue tunic-leotard that has a small gold star on the center of it along with a thin sash that has a lighter gold color to it around her slender waist that's used as a belt for her dark amber colored jeans. She is wearing a black jacket but her arms aren't in the sleeves, instead the jacket is being held around her neck by a simple button clip on the collar, allowing the rest of the clothing to flow around her free and clear. For footwear, she has a pair of black thick ballet slippers on with boot treads on the bottom. When she finished stretching her arms, she swishes her head left and right to stretch the muscles in her neck, which makes her short black with pink streaks hair that goes to her shoulders bristle in the wind and the movement. She stares at the people with blue eyes and a curious expression as they look at her with shock. "What? Is there something on my face?" She asks confused as she wipes her face with one of her hands, the limb brushing against the Pearl gem on her forehead and revealing the Jade gem on her shoulders as well.

"Who are you?!" One of the strange men to her asks in surprise and anger.

"Who am I?" She asks genuinely confused. Then she looks at her arm and can't help but stare at the limb. "Woooaaaaahh…" She says in awe as she examines the rest of herself. "Hahahahaaaa! Wow! Is this—! Oh my god!" She exclaims loudly in surprise and happiness as she runs her hand all over her body. "So this all that you've guys been bragging about! Man, this is awesome! I look good and… okay stop there." She says to herself with a blush as her hands almost went to more… personal areas.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" She stops her examination at the loud temper the guy seems to be having right now. He looks ready to burst with anger.

"Who am I?" She asks herself again with a hand to her chin. "Hmmmm," She thinks as she taps her chin and feel the thoughts going through her head. "Well, I feel like Marcus…" She pulls out one of Marcus's green katana from one of her Jade shoulder gems, making them men aim their weapons at her, "But also like Pearl too…" She then pulls out Pearl's spear from her Pearl gem on her forehead.

"But I can't be called one or the other… so I think you can call me," she brings the katana close to the blade of the spear, where the blade fuses with the handle. Soon the rest of the spear transforms as well, the shaft and handle of the spear becoming a deep dark Viridian green and the blade is a pale turquoise and has effectively doubled than from before in both length and width. Once it finishes forming, she twirls it around herself a few times before grabbing it with both hands and getting into a combat ready stance. "Serpentine!" She declares her name to the whole world with a smile as she grips her Glaive with both hands. "Now…" She swipes the spear the through the air until the shaft of it lay against her back. "Shall we dance?" She says in a cocky manner.

"Grrrr…" The guy growls as he grits his teeth in anger. He looks around at his allies before pointing at the new player. "Well what are we waiting for?! Kill her!" He yells and opens fire at her. The rest of them fire as well in tandem.

But to everyone's surprise, she moves in a flash a few feet to her right, dodging the first wave of bullets because of it. The gang members are surprised at the speed but they shift fire to her new position but the same thing happens again, she dodges the bullet fire again and again as the routine repeats itself. They try to shoot her but each time she dashes in the blink of an eye, faster than their firing could hit her, and each time she manages to get closer and closer to them.

Until she's right on top of them.

"Hey." She says casually as she appears again in front of one of the guys whose reloading.

"Ah! What the—!" The guy freaks out the sudden intrusion and steps back, along with the other members because of how quick the fusion moved.

"Now that wasn't very nice, you know?" She says with a playful pout.

"Why you—!"

*Crink*

One of them who was reloading his shotgun swings it around and grabs it by the barrel before swinging it like a bat at the back of the fusions head. The weapons wooden stock however breaks off easily and the receiver part bends slightly, but however slightly bent it is, it's enough to jam any shells trying to be loaded to fire. He stares dumfounded at the useless weapon in his hand now. Serpentine doesn't really acknowledge the hit and she simply looks back at her attacker. She gives him a slow nod that says 'No'…

*SMACK*

… Then kicks him, hard. With dexterous movement, she sends her leg right into the guys chest, effectively breaking his ribs and sending him flying towards the rock wall and embedding him into it, killing him instantly. The rest of the gang members look on in shock at the move before staring at her. She calmly pulls her leg back down and grips her Glaive with one hand tightly. "Hm." She smirks before twirling around on one foot in a ballets pirouette and slicing in a circle. Two guys are cut down easily but the rest move back in time, saving themselves but only for a moment. She dashes to another and slashes him across the chest. He goes down with a groan and doesn't get back up before she moves onto the others. The last two stand side-by-side and try to pull out their sidearm's to fire but she moves in the blink of an eye and sends her feet into the left ones face and slicing at the other at the same time. The both of them are thrown to the ground into heaps and she reorients herself gracefully onto her feet. After taking a moment to calm down, she looks down at the bodies around her and purses her lips, "Hmmm… that can't be all of them." She questions out loud. Looking back to where everyone was coming from the entrance of the Kindergarten, she deftly jumps up the collapsed rock pile until she makes it to the very top of the rock slide. "Ahh, there we go." She smiles as she stares at the squads of gang members making their way to where she just was moments ago. Over a dozen of them move along the canyons floor to her and several small squads make their way along the top of the walls in support and overwatch positions. "Alright then," She jerks her head to the side pops some of her bones before she plants her Glaive in front of her. "Now, who do I start with?"

*CHING!*

Very subtly, she moves the blade of her Glaive to the side in front of her face and deflects a bullet from hitting her. The .338 Lapua Magnum bullet stops dead against the thick blades side and clinks to the ground, the blade itself only jerking back a little. Slowly, she looks down at the flattened round before looking in the direction it came from and smiling.

Then she disappears.

* * *

"Wha…?" The sniper says in confusion from his prone position as he sees the sparks fly off the blade of the target but it looks like she's unfazed.

"How did she—?" His spotter asks in confusion as well. Apparently he can't believe it either that somehow this mysterious woman just stopped the bullet from his rifle.

"IIIII… don't know. How did she…?" The sniper trails off in asking as he looks to partner.

"I have no idea. Probably just luck." The spotter replies and glances to his partner before going back to his binoculars. "No matter, just fire more rounds at her. She can't be that lucky or skilled."

"Right." He aims down the scope and looks for his target. "Wait, where did she go?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, boys."

Both men twitch in surprise at the new voice right behind them. They turn onto their backs and stare at the tall woman standing above and right behind them. She's tapping her Glaive against her shoulder and gives them a curt smile. "I'm pretty skilled wouldn't you know it?" She says. Her smile turns to a frown when she talks again. "But still, shooting me was kind of rude, you know?"

"Uhhhhh…" They both say in utter confusion, minds completely blank as to how this woman somehow got from across the way to them in only a few seconds.

"But… oh well." She says with a smile and slices down before they can react.

* * *

"AAAAAHHHH!"

"Huh?" One of squad leaders on the ground in the back looks up in confusion at loud sound. To his and his men's surprise, their sniper teams body's start rolling down the rock wall for some reason. "Wha—"

*Bang*Bang*Bang*

Before anyone can react, three shots are heard in quick succession and three guys go down easily with perfectly placed shots to the hea. He looks up to where the snipers were but that's the last thing he sees ever.

* * *

*Bang*

Another body falls to the ground with a slump. "Wow, this is nice." Serpentine comments on the KIVAARI semi-auto sniper rifle in her hands. After she threw the guys off the cliff, she stomped on the stocks edge of the rifle, sending the weapon flying into the air and into her hands, where she immediately opened fire on the backup squad at the base of the cliff she's standing on. After dispatching the group, she reloads and stares at the group's running back towards her now. After she opened fire, the forward attacking groups then realized that their target wasn't in front but somehow got behind them. "Let's do this." She says to herself and proceeds to open fire on the remaining men running to her. With precise accuracy, she shifts fire easily from the bottom of the ravine, to the top right of the walls, then the left, and repeating the order again and again after she hits one person from each group. Soon, each squad of men start to take cover as they find more and more of their own fall to the ground and not getting back up. "This is too easy." Serpentine comments to herself as she drops the empty magazine and loads in a new one. "Woah!" She yelps as she twists herself around and collapses to the ground into a prone firing position, narrowly missing a slew of bullets aimed right at her. She brings her rifle up to bear and opens fire on more unsuspecting gang members, those who peak their heads out don't have time to regret the decision.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*Click*

"Hm." She grunts as she releases the empty magazine and goes to grab another, only to find that she's out. "Aw man." She says in a disappointing tone and lays the gun on the ground. After a few seconds of not shooting, the rock wall she's laying on gets lit up with continuous fire from down below and the sides. Carefully and calmly, she peaks her head up and examines her enemies and sees a dozen men on the ground and the few or more running and shooting towards her on the sides. "Hmmmmm," She thinks for a second about the precarious situation she has herself in before she crawls back and turns over onto her back, staring into the sky, not perturbed whatsoever about the projectiles pelting her position. "… I'm gonna need some help with this." In one fell swoop, Serpentine pushes her legs onto the ground and goes into a handstand before letting the rest of herself slide down the rock wall. She pulls out her Glaive mid flip and jams the blade halfway into the rock to somewhat slow and control her descent as the men fire on her, their shots missing her by inches and centimeters. When she's a few from the ground, she plants her feet on the wall and pushes back, creating a dent and crack in the rock while also tearing her spear out. As she flies back and is about the hit the ground, she does a series of back flips all the way to a nearby boulder that she uses as cover.

"She went back there! Move in!" One of the remaining squad leaders orders what little of their men is left. They begin to converge around the rock until they see a glow appear from behind the rock.

"Wait what was—?" One of the grunts begins to question the light but is cut short as their target jumps over the rock and lands with now two Glaives in her possession. She smiles at them for a second, admiring the temporarily stunned looks on their faces but when they aim at her, she begins her dodging maneuvers. Like before, they try to shoot her but she dashes left and right in the blink of an eye, dodging the shower of bullets and pellets that pepper her previous positions. Soon, she appears in the middle of their group. The men freak out at the sudden appearance of her right next to them and turn to shoot at her. Now, being a few feet from her, you'd think a near point blank shot would be enough to prevent her from being able to dodge the bullets right?

Wrong.

As the guys are bringing their guns up to fire and with graceful movements, she leans back till she hits the ground flat on her back.

They fire.

"Aaaaahhh!" Multiple guys scream out at the same time as less than half the last dozen of men attacking her all shoot each other instead. The remainder people freeze at the sudden friendly they sustained, giving Serpentine the opportunity to retaliate. Swinging her legs around, she does the Wushu Spin up maneuver to push herself back onto her feet. When she lands on her feet, she twirls herself around and brings her right leg high up into the air before slamming it into the ground just as her opponents finally come out of their surprised state. When her foot slams onto the ground, a kinetic area-of-effect attack happens, cracking the ground under and around her using an earthquake-like effect. She remains firmly standing but her enemy's are pushed back and launched off their feet, throwing them to the ground in a daze.

' _Now that these guys are stunned…'_ She thinks and turns her head to the top of the walls where the remainder of the attack force takes aim. _'Time to take you out.'_ She thinks and starts sprinting towards the face of the wall.

"There! Fire!" The guys at the top finally see her moving towards them and open fire. Because of her speed, their shots miss and impact the ground around her. As soon as she makes it to the wall, she doesn't stop… she keeps going. She stabs both her Glaives into the wall and pushes herself up along it. Keeping with the momentum, she runs up the wall straight towards where her enemies are. They continue to fire at her so she moves her Glaives in front of her, where the bullets deflect off the blades. They quickly reload their guns but as she makes it to the top, she does a flip off it, slicing at two more guys before landing on her feet and pressing the attack. She stabs one person through the chest before twisting herself around and slicing at another with her second spear. The remaining couple tries to shoot at her but she uses the body she stabbed as a shield before throwing it at them, knocking them to the ground. She slides to them as they try to get up but ends them before they could do anything else. Taking her spear back she stabs both of them into the ground before kicking a rifle into her hands and aiming at the opposite wall. Three try to shoot her but she quickly dispatches them before they can fire. Dropping the weapon to the ground, she runs to the edge of the cliff, retrieving her spears along the way, and jumps off far and high into the air.

* * *

"What… the…?" One of the men on the ground questions as they stare at the silhouette against the sun. For a second, they can't see anything at the all except the blinding sun.

*Shick*

The men freak out as a spear flies from the sky and embeds one of them to the ground.

*Shick*

Another is taken down as a dark figure finally appears from the sky.

"Open fire!" Without another word, they open fire on the figure as it careens towards them. It looks like their shots aren't doing anything so one of them tries to run. This proves fatal as the figure slams into the ground like a rock, crushing the man. The others try to aim at the target now that it isn't in the air but she moves forward and starts some CQC combat. Dashing, she punches one person in the face before flipping around and kicking another in the head. She gut punches one before bringing her knee up to hit him in the face. Turning around, she kicks a MP5 gun out of one's hands before grabbing the weapon in mid-air and hitting him upside the head with it. With one hand, she holds the trigger down as she swishes the weapon in a wide-arc around her, hitting a couple guys and injuring some others. After dropping the weapon, she rolls to one of her spears and pulls it out before swinging it around by the end, cutting down a couple more before hitting one of them in the face with the shaft and roundhouse kicking him. She throws her spear and ends another before grabbing her other spear.

The last man standing quickly aims his Mossberg 500 shotgun loaded with slugs at the targets back and fires. When he begins to depress the trigger, Serpentine grabs her second Glaive and pulls it up and out in an overhead arc. When the trigger is pressed, the slug leaves the barrel and heads straight for its intended target.

*SHIINNNNGGGG!*

In one fell swoop, the blade comes down on the slug and slices it right in half. The blade embeds itself in the ground from the force of it coming down.

The world goes silent at the action. Serpentine breathes deeply at the amount of exertion on her body but the remaining guy is a mess. He is visibly shaking in his shoes and his gun is jerking and jumping all over the place from a complete feeling of fear. Here is a woman, an inhuman woman that took out dozens of men that came here to capture some kid… and now he is the only one left.

Very carefully and slowly, the fusion, stands to her full height, freaking out the man even more as he finally gouges just how much taller his opponent really is. He can't even bring himself to pull the trigger as she slowly walks up to him. All the while, he's still shaking as she was walking to him. When she's pressed up against the barrel of his shotgun, she leans down stares directly into the mans eyes, his eyes shrinking to pinpricks from fear.

"Boo."

Because of the voice in front of him, he drops his gun and takes a step back but falls back. In a desperate attempt, he begins to crawl away as he hyperventilates. After crawling several feet away from this monster in front of him, he tries to get to his feet but he trips a few times before finally sprinting away.

Serpentine stares at the fleeing human for a minute at his desperate attempt to get away, running, crawling, and climbing his way up to get away from her. When he finally makes it to the entrance of the Kindergarten and out of sight, she closes her eyes and breathes in and out deeply a few times before spreading her arms out.

She begins to glow and break apart.

* * *

"Ah!" I gasp out as I collapse onto my back and breathe in an attempt to calm myself. _'What… the hell… was that?'_ I think as I blink rapidly steady my vision.

"Marcus!" Pearl pops up into my vision with a bit of worry lasing her voice. She grabs my shoulders and looks at me with a bit of panic about her. Her panicked state lessens when she sees nothing is serious about me. "Are you alright?" She asks quietly.

"Mmm…" I groan and she helps me sit up. "Yep, yeah I'm good." I say and grab my shoulder. My wounds from before are still apparent but they aren't as serious or hurt as much as before. "Nothing too bad."

"That's good." She says in relief. "Here, let me help you up."

"Alright… Ow."

"Easy."

Carefully, Pearl grabs my arm and helps pull me to my feet. My sore body has been worked ragged through this whole ordeal but at least it's over. When I make it to my feet, I relax. "Ahhhh… Thank you Pearl." I thank her for the assistance.

"Your welcome." She nods and after it looks like I'm not gonna collapse, she looks around. "Woooow, we sure did a number on this place." She comments.

I can't help but look around as well. Body's litter the whole area around us, along with small holes, cracks and divots in the ground where all the fighting took place, even the avalanche of rocks from earlier would be hard to miss. "Yeah… yeah we did." I agree with her on the subject. There is a moment of silence between us before I break it. "Sooo… that was fusing?" I ask her somewhat awkwardly.

"Yes, it was." She says firmly. She then turns to me with a smile. "Marcus, I still can't believe you… you fused." She says in almost disbelief.

"Yeah, I can't believe it either. It was just a… spur of the moment thing, you know?" I try to explain to her about the whole fusion thin but even now, I'm still a little bewildered by it.

"But how did you—"

"I… have no idea." I quickly say. "I know you said it would take a synchronizing dance routine in order to fuse in the first place, but when those RPG's were coming right at us, all I wanted was to protect you and make sure nothing bad happened. I was going to tackle you away and use my body to try to shield you from the explosions… but I guess fate decided otherwise." I say the last part with a smile. This wasn't what I intended for my first ever fusion, or fusing in general, but at least we managed to come out of this somewhat unscathed.

"Yes, I believe it did." She agrees with a smile. She may have been a bit weirded out when Steven first fused with Connie, but nonetheless she was still proud of him afterwards. Now… with me no less? I have no idea. Thankfully, I had a sort of different view when it comes to fusing because at first I thought it was a melded consciousness to fuse, but instead I still felt somewhat myself even when we fused, and to add to that, I didn't see into her mind, memories or anything of that nature so I should be safe of her seeing anything… unsavory I did or went through in the past. "How was it?"

"Hm?" I murmur as a question.

"The fusing… how was it?" She asks me, almost embarrassing or awkwardly because she's rubbing her left arm with her right hand and looking away.

' _How was it?'_ I think as I stare at her. I continue to stare at her for a moment, trying to think of how exactly I felt about the whole experience. I look away, "I felt… strong… fast… powerful." I try to explain but the whole thing was… wow.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." I say with a smile. "The whole ordeal was… exhilarating. Crazy being combined and all but… damn was it something. It's hard to put into words really." I look at her. "What about you?"

"Well, I have fused before with Garnet and Amethyst, even both of them at the same time." She reminds me.

"Yeah, I remember your fusions. To be honest, Opal and Alexandrite were a whole lot better than Sugilite." I comment. _'Way better. Sugilite really sucked. She was supposed to do one job and instead almost killed Pearl and I. I do not want to see her again any time soon.'_

"Yeah, she was a bit… eccentric." She chuckles.

"A bit?" I ask sarcastically with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay, more than a bit." She corrects herself and I nod. "However," She continues, "I do remember one other fusion I became… and fusing with you reminded me of her a bit." She says somberly.

"Who was it?" I ask. She doesn't answer right away but looks away from me.

"It was—"

"Shhh!" I quickly shush her as I hear the sound of an engine turning on.

* * *

The last survivor runs as fast as he can from the canyon and away from that… that monster. He finishes crawling out of the canyon and sprints to where one of the vans are parked that he and all his friends rode in to get here. "Fuckfuckfuckfuck." He curses repeatedly as he trips a few times before slamming into the driver side door and trying to open it. He tries to open the door but it's locked. He quickly pats his pockets for the keys. "Shit!" He curses loudly as he remembers he wasn't the one driving. "Haa… Rah!" He yells as he slams his elbow into the window, breaking the glass and allowing him to reach in and open the door. He quickly climbs in, closes the door and starts pulling out wires from under the steering wheel before he starts connecting and sparking wires together to get the engine to start. "C'monc'monc'mon…" He repeatedly hopes again and again that the wires will start the vehicle, his only hope of getting out of here.

*Vrrrroooooomm!*

"YES!" He triumphantly yells and quickly sets the vehicle into gear before stepping on the gas. The tires peel out and he takes off down the dirt road before coming onto the paved highway and heading to anywhere that's not where he just was. _'Okay… okay… Got to get out of here… that… thing it just… Oh god…'_ He wipes his brow from the sweat beginning to form before he continues to think. _'Got to get back… tell the boss, the others… we need more. A lot more if we want to take him… her… Whatever! Do—'_ His train of thought is forever cut.

*Bang*

A distant gunshot can be heard following the round that passed through the vehicle.

The body slumps forward, taking its foot off the pedal and forcing the wheel to turn to the side, bringing the van to a stop on the side of the road.

* * *

"Target down."

"Nice shot."

I nod at Pearls comment and stand up from the top of the van before jumping down. I take out the magazine and pull the bolt handle back on the Barrett XM107 SASR .50 Cal. Sniper rifle in my hands, ejecting the round in the chamber before slinging it on my back. "I'm gonna have to destroy all this. Destroy any trace anyone was here in case anyone goes snooping, and to make sure scavengers don't attract unwanted attention." I know vultures tend to circle their feeding ground from high up in the air that could be seen from miles away. From the amount of bodies here, coyotes, vultures and who knows what else could garner unwanted attention from the road if they stay long enough. I turn to her, "Can you go get that van and bring it back here?" I ask her.

"Sure. Hu!" She agrees and jumps off, soaring far away from me to where the van stopped. Once she's far enough away, I begin to check the inside of the rest of the vans for any gear I may be able to salvage. Theirs over half a dozen vans and trucks here and most of them are completely empty, most likely for transporting the amount of people we fought, while some of the vans must have been used for carrying their weapons because I'm seeing various shell casing litter the floor of the back of them. Nothing is in the weapon trucks because it looks like they took everything from them so they could use them against me. "Damn, talk about overkill." After closing the doors, I look back at the Kindergarten and shake my head. "But I guess that doesn't count in this case." I comment and walk over to the last van. "Alright," I grab the doors and swing them open. "Let's see what's in… here." My sentence trails off as I see that this van doesn't look like it was meant to hold a full load of men or weapons. What gets my attention however, is the cork board on the side of one of the walls. I crawl in sit in front of it… and my breath hitches. At the top of the board, their is a picture of me stuck against it by a knife through my face.

But that's not what makes me freeze and my eyes widen. Right under that are several other pictures of people.

People I know. There is one picture each of some of the people I know in Beach City. Sadie, Lars, Buck, Sour Cream, and even Jenny. "Oh my…" I don't finish as the rest of the pictures make me gulp in fear. Pictures of Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Connie, Steven, even his dad Greg, are here as well. All of them are pinned to the board with a tack and colored twine is used to connect some pictures to others. All of them however, lead back to me. "My god." I breathe out breathlessly. I lean back and let my back hit the opposite wall as I process what this means. _'I was too much trouble for them. He wasn't kidding about who they knew… they're getting leverage on me… on my… family.'_ "No no no no no." I repeatedly say as I grab my head with my hands at the threat I've put everyone through. _'God dammit! Who the hell did I originally piss off?!'_ With a bout of anger, I punch the wall of the van next to board. The punch leaves a small dent and lightly shakes the vehicle but I also ignore the pain in my hand as I deathly stare at the board.

I hear the sound of a vehicle approaching. It doesn't take a genius to know that its Pearl returning. "Crap." Thinking quickly, I rip off the pictures of the crystal gems and stuff them in my pockets.

"Marcus?" I stop as I'm about to grab the others pictures but Pearls voice stops me. "What are you doing?"

I look back to see her leaning into the view of the doors. Slowly, I rub my fingers against the picture of the Jenny and lean back. "They know Pearl." I grimly tell her.

"Know what?" She asks curiously. I wave my hand forward to gesture to the board. She crawls in next to me and looks at the board. "What's this?"

"This… is some sort of… list." I try to come up with a name for this but that's the best I got. "As you can see, they know about me, obviously. But it seems… their keeping tabs on others I know." I gesture to the pictures of everyone else on the board. Sadie, Lars, Buck, Sour Cream, Jenny and Connie are still on the board. "They want me. I don't know why… but they do." I say in a sad tone.

"Oh my…" She breathes out similar to me earlier at the revelation as she brings her hand to her mouth. "What about us?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What about me?" She asks frantically as she leans in closer to me. "And Amethyst, Garnet, Greg?" Her eyes widen and she grabs my shoulder, fear etched on her face. "Steven? Do they know about him?" She asks fearfully.

I stare at her with surprise. This is probably the first time I've seen her with genuine fear on her face and she looks ready to break down. They do know about her and everyone else at the temple and I know how much Steven is important for her and the others. I can tell her but… she'll be scared, fearful of what might happen… but she'll know.

My hand carefully moves over my pocket, where I have the photos.

"No… They don't."

* * *

 **…**

 **Okay, I may have gone a bit overboard, I think. Sorry if this was a bit long for a fight people but after spending the last month focusing on tests and essays, I guess I just wanted to go crazy for my own enjoyment. That being said, I finished all my tests and now I am effectively done with this semester of college so expect some faster updates from here one out.**

 **… Maybe…**

 **I'm sorry guys. I'm replaying the Dead Island series because I grabbed the deal on Xbox Live when the collection was only $20 so that's eating my time. I'm also playing Gears of War 4 (Awesome story) and I'm going to be playing Dishonored 2 to see how it is as well eventually.**

 **Still, I hope this chapter was good for you guys as it was for me and really opened up a lot of things for your guys. I was debating pretty hard on what type of gem was going to be used for my first ever fusion and Serpentine just stuck. I hope what I did was good for you all and I hope you like her. If you guys got ideas for more fusions in the future, don't be shy to suggest. Sorry coldblue that I didn't use much of your suggestions when it came to fusion with Pearl but this kind of stuck with me more. Some of you also suggested multiple arms when it comes to fusing but personally, I felt the whole more than two arm bit a little played out. I don't know if it's because the show had many fusion characters have multiple arms, or it's that I don't have much experience writing characters with multiple arms, or what but I still hope you guys like it.**

 **I also wanted to give her a cheery attitude because it kind of brings out the moments of where both Marcus and Pearl are usually happy people. There are moments where Pearl is extremely happy about something and Marcus isn't always a gloomy character.**

 **And if she seems a bit OP… well, it's mostly the situation at hand that determines how good a character is. Case in point: Remember Smoky people? One second Amethyst is getting a beat down and barely doing anything against Jasper… next thing we know, a fusion appears and she's pulling out some slick yoyo combat action, completely wrecking. Plus you guys know how good both Pearl and Marcus are separately. Pearls field of combat from what I can tell are not brute strength but rather speed, intelligence and grace. Marcus is quick movement, tactical cunning and precise striking to either debilitate his opponent or take them out in one hit. I figured these traits for both of them lead up to this special fusion who's both very powerful, very fast and who's mind can process things a lot faster than nearly anyone, AKA, the bullet deflections.**

 **Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving and wish you all a good Christmas as well.**

 **As always, have fun reading.**


	33. 31 Marble Madness

After Pearl was relieved at my lie, we got to work gathering all the armaments that the Iron Kings brought. From the usual assault rifles, shotguns, SMG's and rifles they brought, I got a ton more explosives for me to use from frags, stuns, flashbangs, and rocket launchers. Thankfully, I had Pearl go first with nothing to make sure Steven wasn't there when I was bringing the stuff over. He wasn't so after we quickly explained to Garnet and Amethyst, which the former was troubled by the news and Amethyst almost went ballistic at the idea that her birth place was some kind of battlefield, they helped move all the new gear into Pearls room until we could find a proper place. After we drove the vehicles the kings used next to the warp pad, I field stripped all but one for anything I could use from filters, spark plugs, gas and any wiring I could use for any of my vehicles in the future should they need them. We later gathered the bodies in one place for me to deal with later.

After we were done for the majority of the day from those tasks, I had to rest because my injuries were starting to catch up with me. It was mostly the rush of adrenaline that made my injuries seem not as severe as I first thought. After a diagnosis I've suffered a few fractured bones on my ribs and arms so I'm not able to go on any missions or do anything too strenuous to fully break them. That means I've missed a few things as well with the others. For one thing, Steven went to some scary movie party over at the lighthouse with Lars, Sadie and Ronaldo for and things didn't go as planned. For one thing, apparently some dormant gem creature was living in the basement of the lighthouse and was after Lars for something he did so long ago. It took over and reanimated some scarecrows and bats to attack them and in the end, Steven was able to bubble the gem and store it away so it couldn't be antagonized anymore. Apparently it still held a grudge for Lars even after all these years.

Next, a blizzard rolled into town for Christmas and snowed us in pretty hard. It was even worse when Connie was hanging out at the beach house when the blizzard rolled so she needed to get home ASAP. I couldn't go out and take her so Greg was the only one who could. It was weird because at first Steven was so excited to have Connie stay over during the blizzard but when Garnet kissed his forehead, his idea did a complete 180 and he immediately took off to get Connie back home. After he left, I asked Garnet what happened and she answered with a smile, moving her visor, and two words: Future Vision. I shook my head at the idea and went back to resting. I was hoping for some sort of Christmas festivity but since the gems don't believe in that type of stuff, we didn't get any decorations. Nor could I go out and get some because I was still a little tender with my injuries, plus the blizzard was pretty sudden so we didn't have time anyway. Another issue that came up was when the gems wanted to destroy the galaxy warp using some explosive device they had called the 'shooting star' as a means to hold back Homeworld if they want to try to repair the Homeworld Warp but I put a stop to that. I worked on the wavelength for the Homeworld Warp and changed it so that even if its repaired, I deactivated and encrypted it so no one but us can use it. Considering my skill and results with the robonoids, they didn't argue much. Still uneasy about it but I'm kind of looking towards the future possibility's too.

Something also happened at the storage unit that Greg owns. Apparently he decided to get rid of his stuff there for some New Year's resolution and enlisted Steven, who enlisted Amethyst, help in getting the stuff out. Don't know the specifics of what happened but after New Year's happened and the fireworks went off, which Steven, Pearl, Garnet and I got to watch with other residents of Beach City, Amethyst showed up at the temple looking down and asked the other gems and I if we could help clean the storage unit. We agreed and while I couldn't do much heavy lifting, I brought my truck so we could put everything in it and transport it to the temple, which Amethyst was nice enough to agree to put all the stuff Greg didn't want any more in her room.

Throughout some of these times, and the times between each of these events, I spent a lot more time on my robonoids and got to working fiddling with them for the tasks I had in mind. I was able to upgrade them a bit on the use of their goo applications for things that could be a bit more mundane and useful for me. See, when they try to repair whatever object they are told to repair, they have to break tiny pieces of the item in question to reform it properly, similar to a bone that wasn't set right. I upped the breakdown part of the goo when they use it, essentially making it into a sort of acid when used. I also added a function for them suck up any excess goo on the ground to be used for quicker applications later, and to reform the items material for later use. I took all of the robonoids I had with me to the Kindergarten and had them break up a large deep plot of land to lay the bodies in. I'm not gonna say I haphazardly threw them in because I'm not that horrible. I laid them down at the bottom with dignity and let my droids, as I am now calling them, reform the dirt over them and smoothening it out, making sure it doesn't look like several dozen bodies are placed there. After that, I had them breakdown the vehicles into their barest materials and store it so I can make them into something else I can make do with later on.

I've also hacked my way into access for any security cameras in town as a way to keep an eye out for anyone in town that may be suspicious looking. Until I can get my own personal cameras up, I've also written a facial recognition software on the cameras and linked it to the different criminal databases, so that way if anyone comes into town with a criminal record, I'll be alerted to it.

With how much info the Iron Kings know about me and the people I know, I need to plan and think of my next move, especially when it comes to my human friends.

For now though, things haven't really escalated to anything super major so it's a pretty chill day for me.

*Boom*

Mostly.

"What the…?" I begin to question from my place on the couch at the noise until the gems barrel past me outside. Following after them, we push through the door and I immediately spot the water has been disturbed by something.

"What was that?" Amethyst asks. At first, there's nothing but the water soon starts rumbling.

"There!" I quickly point to the area it's originating from. To our surprise, and mine especially, a giant robonoid rolls up onto the beach and grows its feet. _'Holy… that thing is, what? 10 times bigger than my smalls ones.'_

"Ha!" Before anything could be said, Garnet jumps off the balcony straight for the robot, who is walking towards Steven and Connie.

"Damn." I quickly turn and duck back into the beach house.

* * *

The giant robonoid machine starts advancing upon both Steven and Connie, who were both originally just reading some books until the robot fell from the sky. Before it can get close to them however, Garnet lands in front of the machine and holds it back, halting its advance.

"AMETHYST! PEARL!" Garnet calls out her fellow gems names.

"Huuuuuh—" Answering her call, the two gems jump and proceed to fall from high up in the sky, heading straight for the hostile machine. "Yaaaaaah!" With a fierce cry, the two of them slam into the machine, creating a small explosion that forces Steven to bring up a bubble to shield him and Connie.

Once the dust and smoke dissipate, Steven lets the bubble fall. "Connie, are you—"

"Get ready, we're not done." Garnet interrupts Steven as more rumbling comes from the water. A second robonoid came down with the first and begins to emerge from the water. Once it fully emerges from the water, she gets ready to attack.

*BANG!*

Someone else beat her too it. The machine gets hit from a large caliber round and instantly showers the area in that goo it breaks down into when damaged. Quickly following the smoke trail, Garnet smiles as she sees someone at the balcony with a rifle. The figure drops down and jogs over to them.

"You okay?" Steven asks Connie to make sure she's alright.

"I love hanging out at your place!" Instead of a regular human being freaked out at the scene that played out in front of them, Connie is happy and amazed at the display.

"Really?" Marcus asks sarcastically as he walks casually to them with his Barrett in his hands. "Usually whenever you see a couple alien machine explode into goo, people tend to freak out at that." He almost steps in a puddle of the goo but steps over it. "I thought we were done with Peridot?"

"Wait, that was—" Steven begins to ask.

"One of Peridot's machines?" Pearl finishes his question and nods. "Yes I think so, only… this is different." She looks to their most experienced gem on the subject of advanced gem tech. "Marcus?" She says his name in a questioning manner in hopes that he can elaborate. Unfortunately, he shakes his head 'no.'

"Sorry. These things look similar but I imagine they work on a different level. Unless we can somehow deactivate these things if more show up and I can hack it, I'm in the dark." He explains.

"That's true… we've never seen them this big before." Pearl answers with a thoughtful look.

"Or this gooey!" Amethyst chimes in, head to toe covered in goo.

"Amethyst, we need to be careful. I've seen what that stuff can do to things." Pearl says, no doubt referring to the acidic nature I did for my robonoids and their goo. Amethyst however just snickers and gets a mischievous look on her face as she stares at Pearl. "Oh no! Don't you dare get that stuff on m!" She says, slowly backing away from the goo covered gem.

"Goop hug!" With her intentions made clear, Pearl freaks out and runs away from the goop hug. Amethyst chases her. "COME HERE, PEARL! I love you, Pearl!" They run a little ways away from group.

"Peridot. Is that the Gem you told me about? The one that's trying to come to Earth? And the one who's robots you stole?" Connie directs the last question to Marcus, who nods.

"Yes, it was." He answers as he slings the rifle across his back.

"We stopped her before but, I guess she can still shoot stuff here from space." Steven says as well. Both he and Marcus walk over to Garnet, who is inspecting the remains of the machine she held onto. "So... what do you think it was here to do?" He asks her.

"We destroyed it." She answers bluntly as she picks up a piece of the broken robonoid. "That's all that matters." She hands their expert on robonoids the piece of the machine. Steven nods in agreement.

"Hmmm, interesting. These ones are so massive the counter measure didn't fully dissolve all of it… or maybe its on some other type of system I don't know abou—"

"Goop hug!"

*Splat*

Amethyst comes out of nowhere and hugs Garnet, splattering the large gem in the goo. The sudden slap against each other also sent a small glob of it flying right into Marcus's face, stopping his out loud contemplation. Pearl approaches covered in goo, having gotten hugged by Amethyst, and looks bashful. Garnet casually pulls her in so they can all have a goop hug together.

"Bleh." Marcus wipes the goo from his face and looks annoyed.

"Is that a XM107 Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle?"

His annoyed look turns to a wide grin as he steps next to Connie and places a hand on her shoulder. "Have I ever told you how awesome you are?"

* * *

After those first two robonoids fell to the planet, I've kept my Barrett close by since its round are a guaranteed hit to destroy them in one go. You know, in case more appear.

*Boom*

And that's paranoia check one.

"What the—?" Steven exclaims in confusion at the noise while I get off the stool and away from my laptop.

The gems all rush out of the temple. "Something entered the atmosphere." Garnet informs us before they take off out the door with me trailing behind, hefting my Barrett with me.

"Up there!" Amethyst yells as she points upwards. We see something falling from the sky but heading in a far off direction. Lifting my rifle to my eye, I aim down the scope to look at the falling object.

"It's another one of those shooting things!" Pearl says. She's right as I zoom in and spot the familiar looking material the robonoids are made of. I trial it down until I see it land on an island very far away that I can barely see through my scope.

"It landed on an island. I don't know which." I inform them as I bring my rifle down.

"Mask island." Garnet answers. "It's the only one in that direction. Come on." She orders and we all take off towards the warp pad inside.

"Connie, I'm gonna call you back." Steven says to the girl on the phone before hanging up and getting on the warp pad with us. The warp pad activates as we are transported to the island.

* * *

As we land on mask island, I tumble roll forward and immediately check the area for any sign of the robonoid. A few yards away, it moves around and about, looking for something. "There!" I aim in the direction of the machine, getting the others attention.

"Is it… looking for a warp?" Pearl asks out loud, mostly wondering about its intentions but we aren't gonna get an answer.

"We have to stop it! Marcus!" Garnet calls my name. Getting it, I rack the bolt handle and loud a round into the rifle as the machine heads straight for us. I pull the trigger.

*BANG!*

The weapon discharges, almost making me stumble back but my strength allows me to stay standing and firm. Like before, the round rips through the machine and destroys it in a small shower of goop.

"Yeesh… What are these things trying to do?" Steven asks.

"… huh, you know, we don't know." I answer as I walk back to the others.

"It's not trying to do anything now." Garnet answers firmly on the subject. With nothing else for us on Mask island, I step back on the warp pad. "Nice shot." She compliments me and taps my shoulder.

"Thanks."

With that, we head back home and hopefully be done with this.

* * *

I was wrong.

At least two more of those things have entered earth's atmosphere in the last few days and its annoying. The gems and I are annoyed to hell and back because of the frequency these things are falling and its weighing on us.

"Stop! – Coming! –Here! – You! – Stupid! – Balls!"

Some more than others.

After the sixth one fell, the gems are so annoyed at them that they haven't killed this one in the desert outright. I'm standing a little bit away awkwardly holding my rifle as Pearl sits on top of the thing, stabbing it in the head repeatedly to no effect.

"Yeah! Let it out! Get crazy!" Amethyst has her whip wrapped around, pulling it back to keep it in place while Garnet is pushing against it as well

"Guys, guys, guys! Stop!" Steven runs past me, flailing his arms in an attempt to get their attention. It works as they all freeze and stare at the kid. "How many more of these things are you gonna have to fight?"

"We don't know!" Pearl says loudly, clearly stressed about the whole thing and I don't blame her. I'm a bit rundown as well. "They just keep COMING and COMING and we don't even know what they ARE! We don't know anything!"

"…" We both stare at her because of her rant. "That's okay." Steven says with a smile, much to her confusion. "I don't know anything all the time, it's like my whole life. But I have you guys to tell me about tell me about Gem stuff, Connie can explain what familiars are—"

"Isn't that a creature you summon that does your bidding?" I ask.

"Dad tells me weird dad stuff," He continues, ignoring me. "And Marcus can teach me about computers and weapons."

The others stare at me for a second. I shrug my shoulders unsure. _'He hasn't really asked… but I can see the interest at least.'_

"But nobody knows what these things are here to do." Pearl continues to voice her unsureness about the machine.

"Well, it probably does." Steven points to the machine she's on top of.

"What?" She asks in confusion.

"Care to clarify?" I ask as well.

"We should follow it and see where it goes."

"Are you NUTS?!" Amethyst asks in disbelief.

"Who knows what could go wrong?" Pearl says as well.

"We can't keep fighting these things forever. Well, we can...but I don't want to." Garnet groans out.

"Yeeeeaaaah, I gotta agree with her." I chime in. "While it would be a risk, I don't like the idea of fighting these things every other day. I think we can all agree that it'll get tiresome." I raise a good point on the matter. While it would be safe in continuously fighting them, the tiring effect we would have from fighting would be brutal over time.

"Agreed. Let's do it Steven's way." Garnet is on board with the idea.

"Yeah! Let's follow the funky flow." Steven happily says as he waves his arms around. I slap my hand on my face at his carefree attitude about the situation.

"We're dead." Amethyst proclaims.

"Let's… just get going." I groan out. The others let go of the machine and they all climb on top of the machine. However there is a problem that comes with that. "Hey! There's no more room. What am I supposed to do?" I ask to no one in particular.

"You got two legs right? You can walk." Garnet casually says with a smug smile.

"But—"

"Mush!" Steven pats the top of the robonoid, signaling it to start moving. Before I can finish my protest, the large machine jerks forward, jostling its occupants and trudging away from me. "Uh-heh-heh. Woohoo!"

"Hm… oh sure, make the human-gem do the walking. Just because I like a more hands on approach most of the time doesn't mean I like menial labor…" I grumble to myself as I walk after them.

* * *

We come out of the warp tunnel.

"Oh god!" I loudly groan at the place we appear in.

"Oh, why here?" Pearl voices my exact feeling at being back here at the Kindergarten. "This site has been damaged enough by the Gems that were incubated here 6,000 years ago! That's it! It's confirmed. These things are up to no good!" She says and begins to summon her spear. I admit it, I'm getting an itchy trigger finger at this thing leading me back here.

"Wait! We don't even know what it's doing here? Can't we just... see where it wants to go?" Steven manages to stop us from tearing this thing a new one.

"Garnet?" Pearl and I look to the defacto leader of our group for an answer. I can go either way.

"Hmmm… Steven's way." Garnet thinks for a second but consents to continuing on with what we were doing before.

"*Sigh*" Pearl sighs and lets her spear go, which slowly retracts back into her gem.

"Whoa!" The others say in surprise as the machine jumps off the warp pad and its elevated position before walking off. I jump down as well and quickly catch up to them.

The others begin talking amongst themselves about something or more than likely what this robonoid wants but I kind of block out their conversation. I'm too busy looking around and keeping an eye out for anything that might attack. Since paranoia is pretty large part of me, and since it was barely over a month ago that this place was nearly my grave, and it WAS a grave for a few dozen gang members. Thankfully, right now we're nowhere near the grave site I made but if we go deeper into this place, we may come upon it.

I'm glad I decided to clean up the aftermath of the fight, otherwise I can't even imagine the amount of emotional scaring that Steven would have endured if they were still here and rotting. _'I still can't underestimate the Iron Kings. While I've got Beach City somewhat secured now, this fight kind of proved that they are pretty versatile in their movements. They kept tabs on me after I left the city and it was then that they decided to make their move. Hopefully since none of their men are gonna report back, and considering how many have gone dark, they'll leave me alone…'_ I shake my head at the thought. _'Yeah, chance of that happening are pretty lo—'_ "Oof!" I grunt out as I slam into the back of the robonoid. It stopped walking for some reason.

"Why'd you stop, li'l buddy?" Steven asks it.

"Something's happening."

"Oh boy." At Garnet's words, I take a step back as she, Steven and the others jumps off it next to me. Before our eyes, the ground in front of the robonoid breaks away into a sort of pyramid shape to it. Next, the machine itself floats up and remolds itself into the same shape as the ground.

"Yesss!" Steven says happily at seeing some progress be made on the robonoids, and how it's all thanks to his idea. The robonoid lowers itself into the ground and pushes the rest of the ground away, going deeper and deeper into the ground like an elevator. "See? I knew we'd find something cool... Let's go!"

"Wait, Steve—! oh great." I try to stop him from jumping in after the machine, especially since we don't know what's down there, but he goes on in without a care. "Ah screw it." Shrugging, I drop down as well, sliding down the incline till I hit the moving elevator right next to the kid. The others drop down next to us.

"Hey guys! Going down?" Steven jokes about our ride but the gems are fixated on something. And when I see what it is, I understand why. "Are you okay?"

"What is all this?" Pearl asks as the walls around us are no longer dirt but instead we stare at the weird thick green wires adorning the area around us.

"They look like… power cables." I answer. They look at me curiously. "Maybe?" I look at them. "This place was used to make gems, correct?"

"Yeeeaaahh." Amethyst confirms it.

"Well, maybe these… controlled the production of the gems in this area. These wires go all over the ground." I say as I point to some of the wires that dig into the ground around us. "That's just my theory anyway. If we come upon a sort of terminal or computer, I may be able to hack into it and find out for sure what's going on." I explain my plan. To be honest this is just speculation at this point. For all I know this is just some secret fall bunker Homeworld could have built as a contingency. Like I said though, if I can get to some sort of computer, I'll be able to find out for sure. Maybe even use some of this tech to my own ends.

Our makeshift elevator stops at the bottom of some room. At first everything is dark but as soon as it connects to a sort of bridge section in front of us, everything turns on, giving off a bright green light around us. A panel begins to rise out of the center of the section of the room in front. I hear some kind of sound under us. Stepping over to the edge, I see a robonoid has appeared under the platform we are on. I train my sights on the little guy as it crawls up on the bridge and over to the elevated control panel. Curiously, it crawls up and places itself on the control panel like a hand. "What?" I question but before I can get an answer, a transparent monitor appears above the room before turning to static. "Crap. Hide!" I loudly whisper to my friends. Static screen means something is trying to be shown on it and with how Homeworld seems to be, I don't think its going to be a tutorial on how to use the Kindergarten. I grab Steven and Amethyst before jumping off the platform and out of sight. Garnet and Pearl jump down as well just as the static disappears.

"Hmm…" I hear someone hum nearby. Looking to the others, I signal for them to stay down and quiet while I check it out. "Established Gem Projection Link with control room."

"Peridot?" I whisper to myself as I climb out up the small rocks as quiet as I can. _'What's she doing back here?'_ I think as I poke my head up. She doesn't notice me as she has her back to us.

"Plug Robonoid has successfully landed on Planet Earth and entered Prime Kindergarten Control Room in Facet Five." She says, most likely to one of her log dates. _'Plug robonoid? Must be what the giant one is called.'_ "Will proceed to perform status check of Kindergarten."

I hear the others whisper about something behind me but its nothing directed to me so I keep my attention focused entirely on Peridot. From what I can tell of what she said, what she's doing, it leads me to believe that maybe she's planning to reactivate this place. _'What would that accomplish? Looking to make an advance force for them to come back?'_ You know, that would actually be pretty smart. In any war scenario, if you could somehow make troops behind your enemies lines, that would split them up on two fronts. No matter how big an army is and by splitting its attention, you could slip your forces in undetected through the cracks and cause hit and run tactics. Problem is, they wouldn't need to do hit and run tactics. All they would have to do is send a few dozen gem soldiers and machines against us and their overwhelming numbers would probably destroy us. _'I should probably come up with some type of defensive/offensive system for me to use against Homeworld if they decide to full on attack.'_

"Steven!"

"Huh?" I say confused at the loud whispering voices of my friends from behind. I look at them but their looking at me with fear etched onto their faces.

"Now accounting for all operational Injectors. Checking for aberrations in perimeter."

I turn my attention back to Peridot and to my horror, and it explains why the others are freaked, is that Steven standing out in the open behind Peridot's screen. Two giant floating green robotic hands come out of glowing circles in the ground before they activate more control panels and these cylinders eject from the ceiling. "Geez, Steven." I mutter to myself at the child's carelessness. I sling my rifle on my back before quietly climbing onto the green floor and crouching towards him. _'Alright, just grab him and get back before Peridot notices._ '

"Ugh, this Gem Tech is simply archaic." Peridot comments on the gem tech here, focused entirely on her work.

' _Almost there… almost there…'_ I think as I stretch my hands out to grab him.

"I don't know, I think it looks pretty cool." My entire body clenches hard at Steven's voice. The same happens to Peridot somewhat as she stops her self-talking, cancels the panels she has open and turns around, staring directly at us. "Hi! I'm Steven."

"…" I'm caught like a deer in some headlights. Very slowly, pull back from Steven before moving into a standing position. _'This is a first contact situation… do not piss her off.'_

"There appears to be an infestation of 'Stevens' in the Kindergarten." Peridot says. From I can tell, I guess she doesn't see humans on a daily basis.

"Daw, I'm not so bad once you get to know me!" Steven says with a smile. I however remain firmly standing, acting as dignified as I can given the situation.

"And how many more Stevens are present in this area? Just the two of you, I hope." She mutters the last part to herself but its loud enough for us to hear.

"Two of us? Oh hey Marcus!" Steven finally notices me standing behind him and joyfully calls out my name, making me flinch a little.

"Marcus?" She says my name in a confused tone.

I let out a sigh before breathing in deeply. _'Well, I had to talk at some point.'_ Clearing my throat, I speak. "Uhhh, hi. I apologize if we… intruded on your work. My name is Marcus, and my friend here is named Steven, as you no doubt already know." I calmly explain to her as I move side-by-side to Steven, placing my hands behind my back. "And to answer your earlier question, no there is no one else here." I say, lying about the gems hiding nearby, obviously.

"Nee-ah, that's a relief. So tell me, have Stevens and Marcus's replaced humans as the dominant species on Earth?" She questions us, much to my confusion. _'Wait, does she thing we're separate species? Why would she… Oh right. Gems are called by their crystalline made up name. She is a gem, but called a specific subspecies gem, AKA a Peridot.'_

"Oh no," Steven begins to say. "There's lots of humans, there's my dad, Connie, Lars and Sadie, the mailman, Onion... I think... lots of people." He counts off all the people her mentions on his fingers.

"Hmm…"

"What he means, is that the both of us ARE human, but we are called Steven and Marcus as a means to differentiate us from the many other humans that inhabit the planet. To avoid confusion." I quickly add the last part.

"A logical approach."

"Thank you." I nod at her words. It's not like I want to suck up to her but if she has access to troops, like more powerful versions of these robonoids, I don't want her to suddenly start dropping them anywhere on the planet. I don't want NASA getting warning signs on their radar at a dozen unknown objects falling from space. Nor do I want to go hunting like I did before I met the gems.

"Now we get to ask a question, what are you doing?" Steven cuts into our conversation. Hopefully his harmless question won't raise her ire.

"Hm, just picking up where we left off." She answers as she turns her screen around, going back to fiddling with the controls of the place. Soon one of her robotic construct hands floats above us and forms a fist. _'It raised her ire.'_

"Whoa!"I push the kid away from me and brace myself.

*Slam*

"Grrrrrr!" I growl out as the thing slams on top of me. I move onto one knee as I'm nearly crushed by the thing but I remain okay.

"What are you doing?!" Steven quickly asks her in surprise.

"Dealing with some pests. Just submit and it'll all be over soon." She casually says without looking back.

"My ass…!" I bring myself lower to the ground, "I'll subMIT!" I push the hand off of me. When it comes back down, I bring my fist into an uppercut and punch it hard, cracking the outer layer of the construct. "Yeah, I am not going down just yet."

"Such a nuisance." She says and waves one of her hands in front of her.

"Alright," I bring myself up and get ready to shoot. "Ignore this you— Ah!" Before I can fire, the second hand wraps itself around me and lifts me up, making me drop my Barrett at the same time.

"Now, if you don't mind. I need to get back to work and I could do without the distractions."

"Distract this!"

*Shink!*

Pearl lunges out and throws her spear at the hand wrapped around me. The spear lodges into the joints of the fingers, making them open up and let me. "A gem!" Peridot turns her monitor back finally and says in surprise at Pearl's presence. I drop to the ground and roll forward, picking up my rifle at the same time before flipping the safety off. Steven and I move back just as all three of our gem friend's jump into view. "Ah! More? But the Red Eye didn't report the presence of any Gems on this planet!" Peridot informs us in a surprised tone. _'Red Eye?... That was one of the things that alerted me to the gems in the first place.'_ I recall the notification I got before I shipped off to Beach City.

"That's because we destroyed it." Pearl informs her as she materializes her spear back into her hands.

"You what? But the records say that Gems were wiped out on earth... wait a minute…" She says after a moments contemplation. "You're the ones that have been destroying my Plug Robonoids... are you the reason the Homeworld Warp is down again? Is THIS your bizarre icon?" She almost yells as she brings up the image of the 'Crying Breakfast Friends sticker' she took from the Galaxy Warp. "Is this your strange tool?" Next she brings up my Colt Anaconda.

"Hey!" I yell, catching her attention. "That's my gun."

"Your gun?" She sneers the word.

"Yes. My gun. A projectile based weapon that generates an immense amount of force and damage in a tiny package." I explain.

She looks bewildered at the object she has after my explanation. "HOW?"

"Let me show you." With that said, I bring my rifle up and aim at one of the tubes. Pearl takes the initiative and covers Steven's ears just as I pull the trigger.

*BANG!*

Due to the close and compactness of the room we are in, the sound of the round being fired reverberates all over the place, making everyone's ears, except Steven's ring loudly because of it but they quickly recover. One of the tubes breaks into a shower of glass, making Peridot turn her screen to the destroyed power tube before looking back at us.

"Uhrooh! Why do you keep destroying my THINGS?!" She yells and growls out angrily.

"Because we are the Crystal Gems!" Pearl announces who we are with determination. "We're still alive, and we're still the guardians of this planet and all its living creatures!"

"The Crystal Gems?" Peridot asks in confusion, almost like she never heard of the term.

"Brush up on your history sweetie." I say with a smirk, making her blush. "I'm sure somewhere in your archives will they tell you of the 'infamous' Crystal Gems. Or should I say traitors to you?" I say the last part with a smirk. The others jump up and start attacking Peridot's hand constructs. I don't bother shooting because I don't want to hit any of my friends, and it looks like they don't need any help.

"Stop! How dare you? I'm doing this one way or another. You're just... making it... really... difficult!" Peridot tries to stop them from attacking but their too strong. Soon, she's left with one hand.

"Amethyst, now!" Garnet orders her teammate.

"Destroy!" Amethyst yells as she uses her whip to grab the hand and throw it at the power source, breaking it.

"I'm reporting this!" Peridot yells to us just before the screen she's on shuts off. Then the rest of the room goes dark as well, all the power shutting down.

"Is it over?" Amethyst asks.

"Yeah, it is…" I answer, then I sling my rifle on my back. "For now."

The Gems however don't may too much attention to me as they walk over and stare at Steven, AKA the person who started this whole thing. "Okay... I, I might have gone a little too far this time." He says with an embarrassed head scratch. _'Oh boy… he's gonna get it.'_ I think as I walk over to the platform that was once the Plug Robonoid and pull out my phone.

"Well, Steven you weren't completely wrong. We learned something new because of your decisions." Garnet tells him.

"Alright!" He cheers triumphantly.

"But yeah, this was a pretty bad idea." And she promptly crushes his spirit.

"Aw man…" He says sadly.

"Marcus, what are you doing?" Pearl asks me, prompting everyone to shift their attention to me.

"Just making sure…" I begin to say as I check the wifi connections in the area… and I'm right. "I am right. As expected, Peridot cut her connection to the Plug Robonoid here." I turn off my phone and turn to them with a smile. "And you know what that means?"

"New toys for you to play with?" Amethyst asks with arms crossed.

"Correct." I walk past them and spread my arms out to the control panel and broken power core in front of me. "So MANY new toys for me to play with." I say with much enthusiasm. This place was untouched by me and the others and with the terminal here, I may be able to get some info as to what Peridot was exactly doing. Not to mention… I'm really liking these power cords all over the place, plus the power core pieces in front of me look salvageable enough for me to make use of. I was thinking for power for my home I would use and heavily upgrade some generators, but gem power core sounds better.

"You enjoy this too much?" I hear Garnet say but right now my mind is sort of in its own world at this point.

"Yeah… a little bit."

 **Well, he's got new access to gem tech for him to use. A new type of robonoid to make use of and much more for him to work on.**

 **And Coldblue… I'm sorry to hear that life is being troubling for you. I and I'm sure others in the reviews will no doubt admit that you have been the most consistent with reviews for my story and I thank you for that. I hope things get better for both you and everyone else reading this entry.**

 **Thank you all for your continued support, Happy Holidays and have fun reading.**


	34. 32 Rose's Scabbard

I was a little disappointed when I started my salvage stripping of the control room because a lot of it I couldn't get out. The terminal and the flooring I was unable to rip out but the power cables lining the walls, the Plug Robonoid that was transformed into the elevator, and the power core are what I was able to make use of. Before I could transport the power core, I brought in my droids to make use of their repair functions, gathered up all the pieces of it, and had them reconstruct it. Once the power core was fully functional, I got started in tearing through the memory banks of the terminal for any information I could find.

Unfortunately, I found none. Most of the data I found was wiped when Amethyst destroyed the power core with her whip and the hand construct. The power failure made a large majority of the data, functions and capabilities completely untraceable and unrecoverable. That means while it's good for them that I wasn't able to get the information, it also means that if they want to reactivate this place they'll need to install an entirely new control room to make this place work again. Since Peridot said the Gem tech underground was archaic, I imagine after the few thousand years old this place was abandoned, Homeworld would have changed some things around when it comes to their tech and how the information would be locked down, not lost. Still, unless they have anymore tricks up their sleeves, this should mean the end of the Kindergarten.

Without anymore information for me to take, I went ahead and started stripping the place. I hacked into the Plug Robonoid, made it look dead, transformed it and sent it off to the temple where I would begin my upgrades for it later. Next, I removed the power core from the place and the gems were nice enough to transport them to the temple as well. Finally, my droids went to work breaking down the visible wires and cables present along the walls to the surface and storing them for later use. The room that the terminal is in and itself were not able to be broken down as easily as the power cables could so I had to leave that behind. Even so, this was a gold mine for me to use and I still got a veritable smorgasbord of materials and items for me to work with.

Still, while I was going through it all, my mind was elsewhere the majority of the time.

My mind kept going back to that target board in the van The Iron Kings had. I took the rest of the photos and kept them all in my jacket but while I was working, I couldn't help but keep looking at them over and over again. It's one thing for them to go after me… but they have ideas for my friends and acquaintances. When I was done, I made my decision on what to do about that.

And with Jenny… I stopped anything from happening.

* * *

" _Wait, what?" She asks._

" _Listen Jenny, back at the rave, you coming over to check up on me… I want to make things clear. I can't have a relationship." I tell her bluntly._

" _What made you think—?"_

" _I just…" I interrupt her before she can say anymore. I let out a sigh, "Look, I'm not the type of person to get into any sort of relationship so if I brought up any signs of being interested or looking for someone… I'm sorry but I can't." I tell her sadly. "I don't want to stop seeing you or hanging out, but… friends is about all I can be, okay?"_

 _She looks at me for a second and what looks like she's probably heartbroken… I can see it in her eye's. But she nods and gives me a comforting smile. "I'll admit, I have thought about it a couple times. Your nice, a pretty cool guy and it's hard for anyone to give you crap about… well, anything really." She chuckles and so do I._

" _Yeah, there were some moments where I was… tested, you know." I say with a smile._

" _So yeah, I did think of something happening between us…" She says with a frown aimed to the ground, making me frown as well. But she brings her head up and gives me a firm look. "But if you're not comfortable with something like that, then I don't want to force you into anything."_

 _I let out a breathe of air I was holding and smile. "Thank you Jenny."_

" _Your welcome."_

" _Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to end everything. I still want to be friends and hang out, and maybe… I might change my mind." I say before slowly shaking my head. "But right now… I'm sorry."_

" _That's okay." She says sincerely, then it turns to a cheeky smile. "I guess I'll have to be patient then."_

" _Hahaha, we'll see." I say good heartedly before embracing her in a hug. "Thank you for understanding."_

 _She lets go and takes a step back. "No problem." A small vibrating noise turns her attention to her phone. She checks and purses her lips. "I should get going. My dad needs my help at the restaurant. Apparently it's a lunch rush and their shorthanded. Ugh!" She lets out a disgusted noise before placing her phone in her purse. "I hate it when that happens."_

" _Hehe, yeah… I can only imagine." I pull out my phone after getting a notification. It looks like all my droids are ready. "I gotta get going as well." I say as I begin to back away. "Good luck with those people!" I call back._

" _Thanks! See you around!" She replies with a wave before heading off to her place as well. When we are well out of sight from each other, I start sprinting and I get a deep scowl on my face._

' _I'm sorry Jenny. The Iron Kings won't stop… and neither will I.'_

* * *

After much consideration, mostly when I was working on my gear and trying to rip out the Kindergartens tech, I decided that anything that could even remotely happen between us was going to be impossible with The Iron Kings shadowing my movements.

I can't put that on her, her family or any of my human friends. The Crystal Gems are an exception because they are not human, nor can they be killed by a single bullet from a distance, or even be kidnapped as easily as I was or a regular human can be. I'm limiting as much human contact as I can with anyone fully human until I can deal with The Iron Kings.

And that's where my home, and my base of operations, comes into play. I spent a couple days gathering the supplies I would need for my home and lugging them up the hill to where my house is going to be above the temple. When it was all done and ready, I got to work on the construction. The gems, Steven, even Greg, all gathered around and watched as my droids started breaking down the house materials I got and went to work making my home. I made the place a two-story house and had it installed with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living area, kitchen, and two empty rooms for me to do with as I please. I also made sure I had windows from all levels aimed at least in each direction, especially from the long hill up, so if anyone comes up on my house, I can see them clear as day. I made so many rooms so in case any of the gems and the Universe family need somewhere to crash, I have that option for them. It took almost an entire days worth of time to get the whole place made and built but when it was done, I was happy. The place has the look on the outside as your average red brick house but is actually lined with steel and the composition of the metal used in the power cables under the Kindergarten. From what I can tell, the walls will stand up to most small arms fire and small explosions, even take a couple vehicle hits, but it would take some powerful high caliber rounds and heavy duty machinery to break through the walls in one go. I still have the standard stuff inside the walls like wood, drywall and insulation for comfort purposes too.

Unfortunately, I still need to furnish the place with furniture and utility's before I can properly move in.

In the meantime, while the others left to that gem battlefield we went through covered in strawberry's and weapons, I'm here in the temple tinkering with the Plug Robonoid, installing the upgrades I already had done with its smaller counterparts.

"Alright… aaaanndd… done." I turn off the torch and lift up my welders mask before shutting the panel. "Alright, you should be ready to go just like all your friends." I say to it as I pat it. It doesn't really acknowledge my words but I'm not too beat up over it. "You know, you had a lot of room in there surprisingly. Enough room for maybe… hmmm." I start to think on what I could do for the big guy. I don't have anymore of the Plug Robonoids since this was the last one Peridot sent so I have to be careful with what I put into and integrate with it. I won't have anymore to experiment with.

I'm brought out of my thoughts as the Warp activates. "Oh, hey guys. How was iiiiiiittt?" I draw out the 'it' as I see all my friends, where Amethyst is carrying a bunch of weapons by the armful, but mostly what gets my attention is the GIANT humongous axe Garnet is carrying. "It… went good?" I ask as a question.

"It went good." Garnet confirms it.

"It wasn't just good. It went great!" Pearl announces happily as she twirls around while holding something pink.

"It did?"

"Amethyst! Help me with this axe." Garnet asks the purple gem as they head through the temple door to Amethyst's room but I'm more curious as to what's got Pearl so happy.

"Yes, it did. Not only did we find many gem weapons to store, but we also found…" She blushes deeply and gives a wide smile. "This!" She extends the thin pink object to me.

At first, I'm not sure what it is, but upon closer inspection I see that it's a scabbard for a sword. What gets my attention however is the Rose symbol on it. "A scabbard, that belonged to Rose, right?"

"Yes, it is." She looks at the item lovingly before dragging her fingers along it. "Oh, it's been ages…" She trails off as I imagine she's recalling memories of the gem that once used it. Silence follows as she stares at it but Steven's staring at her makes her snap out of it. "What is it, Steven?"

"What was mom like?" He asks her.

Pearl smiles as she recalls the attributes that Rose was. "She was courageous, and brilliant... and beautiful... Sometimes, you look so much like her." She tells us. I smile at the memories that Pearl seems to have of the gem. Her happiness is practically radiating off her and its nice to see her in such high spirits.

"Really…?"

"Eh—"

"Yeah, lift it backwards!" Pearls interrupted a bit as Amethyst and Garnet try to fit the giant axe in.

"You mean pull!"

"Yeah, pull, sure."

I chuckle a little as the two of them try to angle the axe in but to no success.

"I'll bop them with this!" I look back as Steven swings the scabbard down, almost hitting me in the shin.

"That's not what that's for Steven." I say. "It's the scabbard. It's supposed to hold a sword in it, not actually be used as a weapon." I tell him. "Although, I do remember some cultures, TV shows and different animes that a sword fighter would sometimes use the scabbard as means to deflect attacks."

"Well I don't know about that last part but he is right about the first part."Pearl says. "It held your mother's sword. Nothing else could fit so perfectly inside. For all this time it's been... incomplete." She tells in a somewhat somber tone. I raise an eyebrow at the way she maneuvers her fingers between each of them as she talks about the sword. If I didn't know better, I would think she was talking about something else. Something more… personal.

"Well, let's complete it." Steve says with a smile. "Where's the sword?" He asks her.

"That's it!" Before she can answer, Amethyst's voice cuts the air loudly. We look over and see that they finally got the axe in. "Yeah, you got it!" She continues to say happily before walking into the room with Garnet, the door closing behind with that weird purple goo it's a part of.

"Can you keep a secret?" Pearl quickly asks Steven once the door closes.

"A secret?!" He replies loudly in excitement.

"Shh! It's a secret, even to Garnet and Amethyst. Rose had a place that she kept hidden from all but me, but you have her gem. That place is yours now, and I can show it to you!" She happily says with a smile.

"Uh, okay."

"Great!" She says with a smile before turning to me. "Marcus, would you like to come too?"

"Really? I thought it was a secret?"

"Well, for one you heard me talk about it so you have some vague idea about it." She tells me with a cheeky smile, making me smirk. "Second, in the time I've known you, I think you can keep a secret." She tells me with confidence.

"Aww, thanks."

"So, do you want to come along?" She asks again but by this point, I already have my answer. I was mostly just screwing with her.

I nod. "Definitely."

* * *

"Welcome to Rose's Secret Armory!" Pearl happily announces.

"Woah… we've been here before!" Steven's moment of awe turns to recognition as he remembers the journey he, Marcus, Connie and Lion took to this place.

"Wha—?" Pearl's smile fades at the news. "You must be thinking of someplace else—"

"Ugh… oh man." Marcus tiredly groans out as stumbles up the stairs, interrupting her. To him, Steven was the lucky bastard in this adventure. And while he doesn't like to speak ill of the kid, ever, seeing his happy expression while Pearl carried him for 3 HOURS… Marcus's mood is a little in the red zone right now and his breathing is labored. "Phew! At least we made… it." His relief goes from happy, to confused, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! AGGGHHHH!" To anger. Marcus lets out a strangled cry as he remembers this is the same armory that Steven, Connie and he came to when they were going to go to a movie. "Seriosuly?! If this was the place, you could have just asked. Not had us climb a 90 degree cliff for 3 hours!" He angrily says, grumbling to himself as he walks next to Steven.

"But… I'm the only other Crystal Gem that's witnessed the Armory's magnificence before now." Pearl tries to reason away their view of the place.

"Sorry to break it you Pearl, but we already witnessed this place and it's _magnificence_." Marcus sarcastically says the last part, remembering his battle with that training machine that electrocuted him and gave him 3rd degree burns.

"Yep, Lion showed us." Steven says nonchalantly.

"The lion?!" Pearl asks loudly, bewildered at the idea that it was Lion that showed them the armory.

"Yeah! There's all kinds of great stuff hidden in here." Steven activates the pedestal like how they first did when they came here.

"I know! That's why I brought you here!"

' _Denial much.'_ Marcus thinks as he places his hands on his hips in prepartation for anything else that might pop up.

"Now let me show you how you can access the artillery."

"That's okay! I can do it without you. Wham!" Steven slaps his hand down on top of the pedestal. Nothing happens… until he remembers what he has to do to activate the place. "Oh, right!" He pokes his cheek, making the group of axes appear. "We got some… axes."

"The Axes of Ages?" Pearl calls out their name in surprise at seeing them

' _I should really broad my weaponry with melee weapons.'_

He then pokes his side, making more items appear. "We got spikey chain lady and her metal dealies."

"Flails, Steven." Marcus corrects the kid.

"The Herectic's Anguish?!"

"We got a…" He pokes his side once more, activating the laser light cannons. "Three pack of laser light cannons."

"The Quartizine Trio!"

"And…" Steven pokes his nose, activating the last part. "A whole lot of these armor guys."

"The Armor of the Fallen!" Pearl says in a frustrated tone, more than likely annoyed at how the first time she expected to show them was actually their second.

' _I should ask Pearl's permission on those armor's later. I've got some ideas for them.'_ Marcus thinks as he stares at the armors around them, at least until Steven deactivates it.

"What were we looking for?" He asks her, completely lost in the moment that he forgot what their original intentions were.

"Her sword!" She almost yells out. "Your mother's sword! It's a straight bladed saber that's pink with a red handle. There are vines etched in the guard that connect to a rose-shaped pommel." She gives a description of the weapon as her gem shows them a hologram of what Rose's Sword looks like. As Marcus gets a closer look at the weapon, his mood deflates, again.

"Oh crap." He groans as he remembers the weapon

"Oh, I know where that is."

"Huh?" Pearl asks, completely and utterly confused.

* * *

"Dadadadada... here it is!" Steven announces happily as he pulls out the sword he and Connie used against the machine from the armory when they went to the movies from Lion's mane.

"Damn, I forgot to keep working on my rebreather." I mumble to myself as I remember the airless atmosphere in Lion's pocket dimension. The gems are all surprised to see Roses sword in front of them so suddenly, but none more so than Pearl.

"Rose's sword, how did it get in there?" She asks in surprise.

"I don't know, but there's a ton of stuff in there, I keep stuff in him too." Steven then proceeds to jump into Lions mane.

"There is a small hill with a tree on top of it with the base of said tree littered with a bunch of items that seem to have quite a significant personal value to a specific person." I begin to explain, and I idly look over at Lion who is licking one of his paws. "And from I saw, the signs point to one Rose."

"You've seen this place?" Pearl asks.

I nod, "I have."

"Ta-da!" Before anymore could be said, Steven comes out of the dimension inside Lion on a bike. _'Huh, so that's where that went. I remember he had a bike but I forgot where he put it.'_

"But how?" Pearl asks to no one in particular. She starts rubbing Lion's mane in hopes of somehow finding this portal Steven keeps using. "Does Lion have something to do with Rose?"

"Grrraaaa!" Lions growls at her for her continuous groping of his mane.

"Oh… of course! THAT'S why he's pink!" Amethyst somehow deduces.

"It's a little obvious." Garnet agrees as well. I don't really have a retort for the both of their answers on this subject, I just raise a questionable brow.

"But… Rose didn't have a lion." Pearl points out.

"It seems like her stuff in there." Steven says as he puts his bike back inside Lion.

"No, Rose didn't have a lion, because if Rose had a lion I would have known about it!" She says loudly, her voice starting to get louder. At this point she seems a bit in denial about the idea of someone she cares about keeping secrets from her. I look down as I think about the similarities.

"Rose kept many things secret, even from us." Garnet says somberly at her memories of Rose.

"But not from me, I was the one she told everything!" Pearl say in a slightly frustrated tone.

"She didn't tell you about my mom." I point out. She looks at me. "How would you feel if someone you respected and cared about harbored a known enemy of your group?" I ask her. She flinches at the news, and breaks her eye contact from me.

"Besides, you're not the only one who misses her!" Amethyst says loudly, a little ticked off at how Pearl is acting now.

"You can't understand how I feel, none of you had what we had!" She yells loudly.

"Whoa!" I cut in. "Calm down Pearl. That's not fair to them just because you spent more time with her." I try to calm her down before she managed to say something she might regret.

"What makes you an expert on her?! You were never there to begin with!" She yells right in my face.

'… _The fuck Pearl?'_ I think from her outburst, making me take a step back in surprise. _'I haven't seen her this mad before. Fuck.'_

"She probably just wanted to protect you, like everyone else." Steven says in hopes of calming the gem down.

"What do you know?! You've never even met her!"

"PEARL!" Her anger disappears before she can punch the wall. Immediately replacing it is a flinch at the loudness of my voice. She and everyone look at me, rage clearly written across from my face, my fists clenched tightly and gritting my teeth. I walk up to her and get in her face like she did me. "That… is not fair… to either of us." I say, my voice low so only she can hear it as I wave my hand to indicate Steven as well. "WE didn't have the luxury to meet her… ever."

Her eyes widen at my words, before bolting past me straight towards the Warp.

"Fine, go! Go cry about it!" Amethyst yells to the gem as she warps away.

"Where did she go?" Steven asks.

"Who cares? I HATE it when she gets like this." Amethyst grumbles as she walks away from everyone to her room.

"Garnet?" He asks the tall gem, but she doesn't reply. He wipes his eye of tear that was beginning to form. "Is she okay?" Again, nothing. "Marcus?" I barely register my name being called, but I lean head downwards, starting to regret what it was I said. "Well, I am going to find her." He turns to Lion. "Do you know where she went?" He asks him. Lion gives off a low growl as his response. "I'm going to assume that means you do." He hops onto his back. "Let's go find Pearl!" He orders determinately. Lion then roars a portal open before jumping in.

"Good luck." Garnet says about Steven after he leaves. I feel her eyes on me. "Was your action the best?" She asks.

I don't answer right away. Instead I let out a long sigh before laying my hand on the wall for support, not even looking at her as I feel like crap about the situation. She begins to walk away from me.

"It wasn't…" I say loud enough for her to hear me, and stop. I turn back to her and purse my lips. "But neither was her's."

* * *

"Get that thing away from me!" Pearl yells as she begins traversing away from Steven and Lion via the floating the chunks of earth leading up.

"You better sit this one out, Lion." Steven tells the animal, knowing how much Pearl abhors the creature. He starts his climb up the floating earth chunks. "Okay, I've had a talk with Lion, he's gonna, uh, chill out here, uh, we're alone now, nice and private." He tells Pearl uneasily as he tries to keep his balance on the shifting rock. She doesn't listen as she continues her trek upwards, making the kid struggle to follow up. "Good idea, I'll meet you at the top." He tells her in a good hearted nature. Pearl is already at the largest chunk of rock floating while Steven continues jumping from one to the other. Slowly het gets better and more at ease with his movement until he makes it to last one from the giant piece Pearl is on. "This is really hard to do in sandals. Ha, ha." He laughs but the unease of it makes it known that he's not really all that happy with it.

"Go away!" Pearl orders him to go.

He doesn't listen. "Pearl! Did I... did I do something wrong? You got to tell me!" He pleads to her for some sort of reconciliation, but she doesn't answer.

When she doesn't reply, he looks down at the massive gap that leads to the ground before taking a step back. Right now, he is unsure of how things are with Pearl and if she won't stop to talk, then he'll just have to keep going to get her to talk. After taking as many steps as he can on the small amount of earth he's on, he runs as fast as he can forward before jumping. To him, everything goes almost in slow motion as he moves through the air, getting closer and closer to the land Pearl is on. At first, it looks like he'll make it. His momentum looks like its enough that'll be able to land and finally get the answers he needs… at least until Pearl turns around. Steven's determined expression turns to one of confusion as he sees the scared and near in tears look on her face. Out of all the times he's been with the Crystal Gems, all the times Pearl has been so supportive, happy and helpful to him that never did he think that he would see her so… vulnerable.

That moment's hesitation is enough to break his forward momentum. He starts to plummet downwards well below his ability to catch the edge of the chunk of the earth she is on. "Steven!" Pearl cries out as she realizes he's not going to make it.

"Whoa! Whooooaaaaaa— Oof!"

*Slam*

Before he could fall past the roots at the very bottom of the ground, something tackles the kid through the air and slams the both of them against the ground. Steven has his eyes clenched shut through the ordeal but when he feels the arm wrapped around his waist, he looks to see who grabbed him. Looking up, he expects to see Pearl… but his eyes widen when he sees Marcus holding onto him. "Marcus?" He asks his friend in confusion at his sudden appearance. His fellow human-gem doesn't reply, instead he keeps one arm on him, his other tightly gripping the climbing axe embedded in the ground, and staring at Pearl, who is looking down at them. "Pearl!" Steven calls out to her but she just goes back out of view.

"Mm." With a grunt, Marcus begins his climb up with Steven as his cargo. He kicks himself upwards with his feet so he can have the chance to stab his climbing axe into the rock at a much higher point without risk of falling off. Steven remains quiet as his friend continues climbing until they make it to the top. Marcus places him on the flat surface first before pulling himself up the rest of the way. Now that they're on top, it's time to fix this.

"Pearl, you have to tell me what's wrong." Steven demands of her. He's tried to be nice and ease her into this, but at this point he knows she can't keep running from this.

They both see her sitting on the other side of the rock, legs curled up to her chest and face buried in her arms. "Sometimes, you even sound like her…" She speaks after a few moments of silence. Unsure of how to respond to that, he looks to Marcus for an answer or some idea of what to do but he nudges for him to get closer to her. After a moment's hesitation, he walks over to her. "Do you remember this place? Do you have any of her memories? We were right here, over 5,000 years ago." She tells him, referring to the previous owner of the gem he now carries.

Before he can answer though, Pearls gem begins to glow as she gets into a one-legged kneeling stance. A hologram appears in front of her… in the shape of Rose.

"Pearl…" The holo Rose says, Pearl mouthing her voice along with it to give the image a voice that she remembers so long ago.

"Yes?" She asks.

"I'm going to stay and fight for this planet. You don't have to do this with me." Holo Rose says.

"But I want to!" Pearl replies without hesitation.

"I know you do. Please, please understand if we lose, we'll be killed, and if we win, we can never go home." Holo Rose says somberly.

"But why would I ever want to go home, if you're here?" Pearl asks a question to the hologram with a smile even though she still looks sad.

Holo Rose chuckles lightly at her friends determination and loyalty before offering her a hand. "My Pearl." She says sincerely.

"You're wonderful…" Pearl begins to grasp the offered limb, but the hologram disappears soon after. She looks saddened at seeing a small shred of her friend disappear after so long. "Everything I ever did, I did for her. Now she's gone, but I'm still here." She begins to say sadly. "Sometimes, I wonder if she can see me through your eyes." She lets out a sigh as her eyes start to well up with tears. "What would she think of me now?" Her voice sounds like she's on the verge of breaking at this point. Seeing the sword again, the memories bubbling back up to the surface and the feelings, it's almost too much to comprehend.

Steven is unsure how to comprehend the feelings she might have in this situation. He doesn't have any memories of Rose to begin with so he doesn't feel as sad as one would expect in a lost mother. But Pearl… she's been with Rose since the beginning and has so many memories to remember her by.

*Thump*

Without anything else to say or do, he simply gives her a hug from behind. "Well… I think you're pretty great." He tells her, genuinely sincere about it.

And that's what it takes to break the dam on her feelings. At the words from Steven, the son of the person she cares so much about, she chokes up and tears start openly flowing down her face. For a few seconds they simply roll down her face until she places her hands on her face and quietly sobs into them. Steven continues to hug her while she lets it all out.

After a few moments, her tears start to slow down until they finally stop. She sniffs a few times before letting her hands drop. "Thank you." She thanks him.

"No problem." He lets go of her and takes a step back. "Do you… want to go?" He asks her.

"You can… I think I'll stay here for a bit." She replies while wiping her eyes and still looking to the open expanse of the sky.

"Oh, okay." He somewhat agrees before starting to walk away. He doesn't know how to best help her in the state that she's in right now. Instead, he walks over to the only other person here who waited patiently for them to finish. "She wants to stay here for a bit." He tells Marcus. The tall human-gem stares at him for a second before looking towards the other gem. "I want to help her some more… but I—"

"You've done enough." He says, interrupting the kid as he walks past him. "It's my turn to clear things up."

* * *

I walk over to Pearl calmly. I'm not a hundred percent sure on what it is that she's feeling right now… but I know we both sad things we didn't mean to hurt each other with.

"Pearl…" I say in a calm voice. I see her body flinch a little at my voice, or me calling her name, but she doesn't turn around.

"Marcus." She replies. We both don't say anything at first. Both us unsure of what we are to say one another after our… words earlier.

I walk over and carefully sit cross-legged next to her, staring into the sky in the same direction as her. "I'm sorry."

"What?" She asks. "No… no I'm the one that—"

"We both…" I quickly interrupt her so she doesn't have to give me the reasons for why she did what she did. "Were in the wrong, somewhat."

"What… do you mean?" She asks as she looks to me.

I let out a sigh before I continue, "You had… no right… to call Steven and I out on how we were born." I grimly tell her. She looks down and I swear she looks like she's going to continue to cry. I place a hand on her shoulder, "But…" She looks at me. "I shouldn't have… emphasized how we are. Making you feel bad than you already were."

She looks at me for a few seconds, contemplating my words and what it was we did. She looks down in sadness, but she nods nonetheless. "I guess we're both sorry."

"Yep." I calmly say. After a few more tense seconds of quiet, I look back to see Steven still chilling on the other side of the rock, far enough away that he can't eavesdrop. We lock eyes and he waves at me, giving me a smile as well. I reciprocate the actions to him before I turn back to Pearl. "Rose was… more than a friend… wasn't she?" I ask without looking at her. Even through my peripheral vision, I can see the look of surprise on her face as she whips her head to look at me. I close my eyes and sigh, "At first, I didn't put too much stock into it. But as time passed, I noticed all the times you talked about her. How much you revered her, how much you talked about how great she is, courageous… beautiful… " She looks away. "You loved her, didn't you?" I ask her, looking at her this time. She continues to look away as she hugs herself.

"Marcus…" She begins to say, her voice barely breaking. "She did so much for me. She showed me I could be so much more than a… servant." She chokes out the last word. "Pearl's are meant to perform menial tasks and be status symbols." She manages to explain.

I stare at her, "That's… it?" I ask in disbelief.

"That's it." She confirms it. "We aren't meant to lead individual lives. Only to follow another." She explains sadly.

It's a little hard for me to comprehend that. In this sense, the gem hierarchy must mean that's all Pearls are meant to be when their made. Not their own person or their own selves… only someone else's. _'That's… that's so… bad. Horrible.'_ "I… can't believe it."

"It is." She curls up her legs and gets a somber look on her face but still smiles. "Rose… was something else. She taught me to be how to be my own gem, how to fight, how to survive… how to live." She says sweetly. "Because of how she was… such strength, bravery, compassion and kindness I had never seen before. At first it was just out of loyalty but after some time, I just…" She trails, unsure of what to say next.

But I do. "Wow. I never really thought of it like that." I look down as I remember how I acted towards her before. "I also want to say, I'm sorry about some of my actions in past. The comments I made and how I acted… especially when you fixed my truck." I bring up that moment. I don't want to but now that I think about it, how she acted kind of made sense, especially the hostility since she still has feelings for… someone else.

"Oh!" She blushes and looks away. "Yes, well, you're forgiven." She quickly says.

"Thanks." I thank her before silence takes us again. "Listen, I have to ask. Do you… really love Rose? Or do you feel indebted, infatuated by her, because of her actions?" I ask her. I know of some moments in the past or some people who are so grateful or have placed a person on a pedestal to the point that they kid themselves in thinking they love them. She looks at me with an open mouth, like she's got something to say but she freezes before looking away. "You don't have to answer right now. We have more important things to deal with at the moment. Like Homeworld."

"Agreed." We compromise on that at least. I don't know the full extent of her relationship with Rose, and I'm only asking so she's doesn't get hurt later on when she finds the answer.

"But I do have to ask you one other thing though."

"What is it?" She asks.

"Do you… want to tell the others… about Serpentine?" I ask her hesitantly. From what I remember about Fusion, fusing is an important aspect with gems and some could perceive it as a sort of intimate notion. The time when we fused was mostly out of desperation when we were almost killed… but it was still fusing nonetheless.

She looks at me before turning back around and staring at the open sky around us. She contemplates her answer about what we should do on the matter. I don't really care if we tell them or not, but she's in this as much as me so I'll defer to her on the final outcome. "We all have secrets we do or do not want to keep from our loved ones. Serpentine…" She looks at me and smiles. "I think we can keep her to ourselves."

With her answer given, I nod. "I'm good with that." I slightly grunt as I stand up. Offering my hand to her, she takes it and lets me help her to her feet with ease. As we stare at each other, we give each other comforting smiles before walking over to Steven, who's ecstatic and happy to see us smiling.

Still, while he's happy I'm not so much. I'm alright with not really telling about Serpentine… but I am a little uneasy. _'Another secret to add to the pile.'_

Even so, with those issues cleared up, we head back down to Lion who is just idling about. Pearl it was necessary to return Rose's sword to its proper place now that it's completed. She hands the sword in the scabbard to Steven for him to place it in Lion, but he grabs her hand and places it on the pommel while he gives a smile, signifying she should be the one to do it. When Steven activates the portal, Pearl gently inserts the sword into Lion. When its done, there is an air of peace about her but she still has a sad look on her about giving the weapon up. I place a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. She appreciates the sentiment but it seems that Steven has a much better option in mind. He does a magic trick for us, first bringing out a top hat for him to wear, then he does the classic magic trick of pulling out the long line of different colored handkerchiefs from Lions dimension as well. We laugh about it

Next, after giving Pearl the top hat and string of cloth to wear, which is awesome by the way, we sit down after he showed us a few more tricks, but the granddaddy of them all comes in the form of him jumping into Lion and comes out with Rose's Battle Flag. Pearl looks stunned and in shock at seeing the item in question. She hands me the top hat and string of cloth before taking the flag into her own hands. Next thing we know, Steven and I are chilling against Lion as Pearl recounts a harrowing battle she took part in while holding the flag and waving it around. What also made it cool was how Steven brought out some snacks from inside of Lion so we could eat. I know he said he keep stuff inside the animal but holy crap, how much did he put in?

Regardless, when we were all finished having fun, comforting each other and giving rousing battle story's, we rode Lion back to the Warp with Pearl holding the flag.

All in all, there were some problems, some emotions brought up and our friendships were tested… but in the end, we all cleared things up with each other.

No more unease. Just… peace.

 **If Marcus came off as harsh to Pearl when she went crazy at finding out about Rose's secret, I hope you guys understand about his closeness to Steven and how unfair it was for her to call him out on that. I admit, when I first heard Pearl say that to Steven of all people… I was a little ticked off.**

 **I mean I like her and all, she's one of my favorites, but that was a pretty low blow.**

 **Even so, I hope everything was still good for you guys. I'm still unsure about some of the more sensitive emotional scenes in this chapter but I don't know where to improve on it, otherwise I would have held on a little bit more to try to make it better but I'm somewhat stumped.**

 **To also add to slight delay on this chapter is Dishonored 2. Seriously, playing low chaos really eats up your time and how much you work with. It's so tempting to just go crazy, slice-n-dice, shoot, blow up every single guard that really screws with me, but I'm good guy so I'll bear with it.**

… **For now.**

 **Thankfully, I'm almost done so I shouldn't have anymore delays in the coming days. The only other game I would rent to play would be Titanfall 2 and I'm sure that ones campaign isn't as careful or methodical as Dishonored 2's is.**

 **Apologies again, thank you for your time, and have fun reading.**


	35. 33 Home Sweet Home

I felt immensely better after the whole thing with Rose's sword was resolved. When we got back, we told the others that everything was good and all was right again. We didn't go too much into detail about what happened but Garnet and Amethyst were happy nothing else was going to happen. Pearl also apologized to the two of them about her actions and they forgave her for it.

When that was done, I got back to work on my stuff and the others remained vigilant for anymore tricks that Homeworld might have in store for us. With that said, that means I need to start working on my base to start working with all the supplies and gear I stole from The Iron Kings, and any gem tech I have.

And that means to get started on my underground complex and in order to do that, I'm gonna need a drill.

* * *

"Keep looking guys."

"What do you plan to do with these anyways?" Pearl asks me.

"I need a speedy way to tear through the earth carefully without causing so much vibration to make the cliff unstable." I explain before I spot another injector ahead. "There." I point to the one standing up that looks intact. "That's perfect." I look to Garnet and Amethyst. "Let's go you two."

"Roger."

"Whatever."

Amethyst assumes the position of jumping to the top of the closest flat cliff surface nearby and uses her whip to wrap the top of the injector while Garnet stands where the thing is going to fall. Steven carries his cheeseburger backpack filled with the other small injector drills I salvaged while pulling the red wagon carrying my tools to a safe distance while Pearl and I get ready to lift. The drills on the injectors seem useful but the problem with them is that they are too massive for me to use on the Plug Robonoid properly. Plus the massive size of the main ones would probably cause too much noise, too much vibration and possibly raise suspicions to people nearby in town when I get to digging. The smaller ones around the big drill should be more manageable for me to work with than the big ones. To add to that, I don't want the outer or inner structure of the cliff to be compromised because of the massive vibrations from the big drills. I need to control it to smaller areas. "Everyone ready?!" I ask them.

"Check!" Amethyst confirms.

"Ready!" Garnet does as well.

"I'm ready!" Then Steven.

"Let's do this." Pearl says and grabs one of the legs of the machine. "This is the last one right?" She asks.

"Should be. Provided the drills aren't cracked or the circuitry is corroded, I should have enough with this set." I grab the same leg as her and get ready. "Alright, on three!"

Amethyst grips her whip tightly. "One…!"

Garnet starts increasing the size of her gauntlet. "Two…!"

Pearl and I grip the metal leg tightly. "Three!" I yell loudly and the both of us heave. With as much strength as we can muster, we start tipping the massive machine until it starts to tip over. The thing weighs over a ton but once it starts to tip without our help, that's when Amethyst comes into play. She pulls her whip as hard as she can in the opposite direction of it falling to lessen its force and speed towards the ground. As the machine falls toward Garnet, she uses her now massive to catch the thing from a much higher altitude than if they were regular size.

"Mm." She grunts a little as the weight of the machine lands on her but she doesn't buckle. Next what she does is begin to lessen the mass of her gauntlets, making the machine lower itself to the ground as well. Amethyst continues to hold back while Pearl and I run to help out Garnet.

"Alright… easy… easy…" I warily say as the thing ever so carefully moves closer to the ground.

"Almost there…" Pearl says as she I grab one side and Garnet goes to the other.

*Thud*

Before we know it, the thing is laid safely on the ground for me to dissect. "Perfect." I say with a smile and start walking over to the drill portion. "Thanks guys. I appreciate the help."

"No problem." Garnet says as she and everyone else follow me.

"Is this the last of it?" Amethyst asks as she drops down next to us.

"Provided these work properly…" I trail off as I examine the smaller drills on it. I smile when I don't find anything abnormal about them. "And they look to be in good shape, so yeah this is the last one." I take a step back and visualize how I'm going to go about this. "My tools, please."

"Here you are sir." Steven pulls up the wagon next to me.

"Thank you." I start picking the items I need to start my salvage operation. "You guys can go. This is the last I need and I'll be here awhile getting these. Steven you know where to place those parts."

"I'm on it!" The kid salutes me and takes off towards the Warp.

"Wait, Steven!" Pearl calls out to him but he's already far gone, so she chases after him.

With that, I put on a welders mask and I'm about to start but I notice Amethyst and Garnet here. "You guys can go too."

"Not a chance." Amethyst says firmly with crossed arms.

"We're not leaving you alone." Garnet may sound neutral but she's just as serious.

I fold up the mask and look at them, "And why is that?" I ask.

"Last time you were left alone here you almost destroyed this place." Garnet simply tells me. I blanch a little as I remember the fight that happened here, both times.

"It was an accident?" I sheepishly say. I mean to say it as a sentence but it came out more as a question.

"Accident?! You almost blew up my favorite rock!" Amethyst yells at me, pointing to the giant rock a few feet away that is peppered with bullets and half of it is cracked and chipped from an explosion.

"… I'm sorry?" Again, it comes out more as a question.

"Ugh, whatever." She grunts out and casually walks to the Warp with her hands behind her head. "I'm going home."

"Hey, I thought you said I didn't want to leave me alone?!" I call out to her.

"I don't want you to be LEFT alone here! Garnets staying because I am NOT waiting for you for a few hours!" By that last note, she walks out of earshot and leaves me and Garnet together. After a few seconds of silence, we look at each other.

"Uhhhh…"

"Get to work." She taps my mask to close over my face. "I'm gonna take a look around."

"Right." I grab my welding tools and get to work.

* * *

The materials used in the construction of the injectors are made of a much harder material than what most earth machines are made of so it does take awhile to cut through it to get what I need. Thankfully no one came around to interrupt me this time so everything went smoothly. With that last set of drills I've got, that brings my number of them up to ten with a majority of the wires attached still working or able to be soldered to what I got. With these things in my possession, I get to work on placing them in the Plug Robonoid for its drill use. I turned off the giant machine and removed the front of the machine so I can get to the inner workings of it and set everything up. Since the machine floats on top of its legs when walking, that means it can drill in almost any number of directions when working without having to reorient its entire self. It just turns the sphere part of itself. The drill pattern I want is kind of a pentagon shape to it with a final drill in the middle of it, which means I'll be using seven drills for it.

"Alright, you go to that… you connect to that one…" I sort out the wires that are to be properly connected to the drills as well as to the inner components of the Plug Robonoid itself.

"You sure you don't need help Marcus?"

"Thanks but no thanks Connie. It's not a matter of complicated intelligence at this point. It's mostly labor. I got this handled." I tell her without looking back. "Thanks anyway."

"Your welcome." She says before returning her attention back to Steven as he finishes his book. "So… what did you think of the ending?" She asks him excitedly.

At this point, I tune them out as they start to get really into a discussion involving this books series that they've been reading. I've already got an idea for the design of the drill in general. It's going to be placed on a circular steel plate that'll turn in one direction, while all the drills will individually turn in the opposite direction of the plate. Hopefully that type of way of drilling will allow it to be localized to its specific area and prevent too much shaking from occurring. The gems were kind enough to head out and get the plate I need while I set up all the necessary connections. "Bye Marcus!" I hear two sets of voice say bye to me.

"See you guys." I idly say as I'm stripping a wire of its protective sheathe. Curiously, I get a confused look on my face as I hear the sound of a magical item being used. As I look out, my eyes widen as I spot the temple door closing with Rose's gem glowing before it becomes inert.

"Oh man." I groan out. It would seem that Steven activated his mom's room again and dragged Connie in with him for whatever reason. After the story he told us when he came back to the real world about what happened, it seems like something that he wouldn't want to mess around with. Then again, he has someone real with him this time so maybe he was feeling more confident now than befo—

"We're back!"

"Crap." I groan under my breath as I hear the joyful sound of Pearl's declaration that their back. Turning back to the door, I see all three of the gems are back with the plate, that Garnet is holding easily. "Heeey guys. Great to see you. Thank you soooo much for getting this for me." I begin to say but I am really uneasy about the whole thing. "Now I'll just take that and—" I go to grab it but Garnet pulls it out of my grasp.

"What's wrong?" She simply asks. Pearl and Amethyst look between us about what's happening.

"What makes you think something's wrong?" I ask with a smile but the way I say it screams I'm lying. It is confirmed that she doesn't believe me when all she does is raise a questioning eyebrow. It breaks me pretty easily. "Oh alright." I groan out and take a deep breath as I look to the temple door and back to them. "We… may have a problem."

* * *

' _Oh sure… I can keep a secret about how a paramilitary-armed gang group is stalking them… but I can't keep a secret about how a 13-year-old boy and his girlfriend are transported into a semi-infinite dimension. Wow.'_ After I told them about Steven and Connie's adventure into Rose's, they were surprisingly calm about it. Since the first time didn't result in any injuries for the kid, they aren't as scared or worried for his well-being now. Even more so their still cool with it considering that Connie went with him and I can see that. She may not be a gem, but she's a bright smart kid that's hung out with us enough times that she's isn't surprised, mostly, about all the freaky almost supernatural stuff we do on a regular basis. If anyone can keep a level head for our Steven, it would be her.

Garnet went ahead and gave me the plate so I could get started on all the rotation mechanisms to add to it and the drills. It didn't take long after I was doing the fitting that the two of them finally emerged from Rose's room. We asked if they were alright and they were. There were some complications apparently, something about differences of opinion on the ending, but it was resolved in the end. With enough excitement for one day, Connie took her leave and the next few days were spent calm as usual.

"Alright, let's do this." I press the button on my laptop and the drill starts spinning up.

Some people have a different definition of calm. My droids added a new entrance to the back of my house that was to lead me to a basement that I'm making. From there, I'll place some miscellaneous items around in it to act as a simple storage area before I get to the real fun of the place. The ground starts breaking and flinging all over the place but there isn't as much vibration and the drilling is pretty focused on one area so I'm happy with my idea working. My droids get to work on breaking down the smaller rocks and dirt all over the place since that's a lot easier to work with than the compacted earth in the first place. "Nice work Marcus." Garnet compliments me.

"Thank you." I thank her as I turn back to everyone else sitting about with some lawn chairs they brought. "Just give it a few minutes and he should be done with my basement." I explain as I plop down on a vacant chair.

"That's pretty cool man." Greg says as he hands me a cold soda.

"I know." I open the beverage and take a swig of it before letting out a satisfying 'Ahhh'. "I aim to impress."

"Are you sure the structural integrity of your home can handle a basement?" Pearl asks.

I wave her off. "My droids made this place to withstand some abuse, plus the way how the foundation is they made it to be should allow it to take the hollow ground underneath without collapsing." After I explain my home a bit, I input some commands before relaxing again. "But… as a precaution, I've set my workers to place structural supports where need to prevent any form of collapse from happening." I take a swig of my drink before continuing. "I'm definitely going to need that when I get to the deeper parts of my home."

"So your still planning to hollow out this entire Cliffside?!" Greg asks incredulously, waving his hands around in emphasis.

"Not all of it." I say and reach down to grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl that Steven and Connie are eating from as they watch with rapped attention on the construction going on. "But yeah a good chunk of it."

"Isn't that dangerous? I don't want this place collapsing on my son you know." He tells me, slightly irked at my apparent carelessness.

"So is fighting monsters several times his size but you let him do that too." I retort. He goes to say something… but can't think of anything else to call me out on after I just checkmate him. He leans back in a 'hmph' while I eat some popcorn, supervising the construction.

* * *

All in all, it went great. The drilling went smoothly and with the supports my droids added, my house is firmly set in place. The place now looks like your typical concrete basement with a slightly darker tint to it. How it is like that is because my droids used the rocks that were scattered all over the place from the drilling and compacted them together so tightly to make the walls and flooring and give it the look of poured concrete. With that set up, it was time to get started on my next setup for my home: The Complex.

For that reason, I enlisted Connie and Pearl's help for the next several days to plan the layout of the place and to make sure that I didn't get any sort of measurements wrong.

"Hmmm, you're gonna want separate rooms designated for specific purposes."

"Rooms you'd want for the purpose of say, research and development, crafting, outfitting, testing, storage, maybe a place to relax…"

"And I want a massive open area I could use to test any new weapons, items, gear, or upgrades for my vehicles safely without exposing them to the public, but enough space so I can have a better idea of getting it to work."

"How about a size of…"

This is how the conversation has been going for some time between the three of us. We have a basic blueprint map laid out on the island table at the house. While I'm a little iffy on the idea of Connie's parent working her so hard to be a prodigy and becoming so smart and successful at such a young age, I will not deny the result of that path and how mature she is. I think that's a reason or helped attribute to how she was so accepting of the lifestyle Steven lives and the existence of us and the gems. While we are planning everything out, Amethyst and Garnet are chilling out around the living area and Steven is off hanging with Buck I think. He showed us a flyer earlier he made by hand about his dad and guitar lessons or whatever. In any case, nothing massive is happening right now or hasn't been the last week so we are able to get some good work done for my place.

"Do you think I can check out your place? I want to get an accurate depiction of the elevator you plan to make and how all this is going to be connected." Connie asks me.

I nod my head, "Go on ahead. If you can get an idea of how to best make this work, don't let me stop you."

"Thanks." She drops off the stool, grabs her backpack and heads off to the front door. "I'll probably be leaving soon anyway. So I'll give you my notes next chance I come over okay?" She tell us as she grabs the handle on the door.

Again, I nod, "That's fine. I need to sort through all the materials I have to make sure that I have everything I need or plan to need when I start setting everything up." I explain. I know from The Iron Kings, I stole some disassembled parts that I should be able to make into some forges or workbenches I can use to make different things.

"Great!" She happily says and opens the door before heading out. "See you later!"

"Bye Connie!" Pearl says her farewell to the kid.

"See you!" I call out as well before moving to the fridge. _'I'm parched.'_ I take a bottle of water before taking a swig of it. "I think we're making good progress." I comment.

"Yes, we are." Pearl agrees. "I will say Marcus, you do continue to impress me with what you manage to come up with." She tells me with a smile.

"Well, I—"

"GARNET! PEARL! AMETHYST! MARCUS!" Steven slams open the door and yells all of our names. We all jump onto our feet in surprise about what's got the kid so panicked.

"Steven." Garnet says calmly, acknowledging him.

"What is it?!" Pearl asks.

"Are we under attack?!" I ask as well, moving my hands over my gems in preparation to pull them out in case.

"Whoa, where's the fire?!" Amethyst asks.

"It's an emergency!" He tells us frantically. "You have to help me get rid of all the shirts and stop Buck from making more!"

"Have the shirts come to life and possessed the bodies of their wearers?!" Pearl proposes.

"No! They Just—"

"Are people catching on fire when they put on the magic shirts?" Amethyst asks as well.

"No, no, they just—"

"Are we dealing with another gem fragment possessing clothes type deal?" I ask annoyed at the idea. "I do NOT want a repeat of Frybo!" I interrupt the kid. Dealing with Frybo in the first place was total crap and if we have any other type of situation where we have to deal with something like that, no thank you.

"What? No! They're—"

"Are the shirts destroying the wearer's will to continue on in this mortal coil, thereby shutting down Beach City?!" Pearl almost screams out in panic.

"Wait, what?" I ask in confusion at the way how she said her idea.

"No!" Steven yells loudly, halting us from guessing anymore. "They're..." He sighs before getting his bearings. "They're just... using my art in a way I don't agree with."

"…" We all give him this look that says 'really.'

"Oh." Pearl casually says and the others sit down. After taking a look around and see that me and Steven are the only ones standing, I shrug and sit back down on the island, idly look over the blueprint again.

"Eh, we'll pass." Garnet says as she adjusts her visor.

"What? But... but I really need your help." He almost begs of us.

"Steven, this sounds like a very abstract problem." Pearl tells him.

"It's not something we can punch." Amethyst points out as she punches her own palm.

"You MUST learn to help yourself. That's how you become stronger." Garnet proposes to him as her visor sparkles. _'How does she do that?'_

"Good point, good point." Amethyst agrees with her with a few head nods.

"Absolutely." Pearl too.

"But—!"

"Look, Steven," I interrupt him. "This is a matter of your own opinion at this point, how you interpret your artwork should be displayed as. It's your work being used here, try to come up with a solution that best suits you." I tell him. It's probably for the best, otherwise if he comes to us with every little problem and we jump on it, then he'll want us to help with EVERY problem he would have that he would be more than capable of dealing with on his own.

"Yes! Why not dust off those conflict resolution skills?" Pearl says to him in hopes that he'll take my advice.

"Let your problem be known. Then you can work towards an understanding." I imagine Garnet means that he probably wants him to resolve this with whoever's screwing with him.

It looks like he's contemplating our words and thinks a bit. I smile as I believe he's going to find a solution on his own. "Oh I'll make them understand." At least until he opens his mouth and says in a tone that kind of screams evil to me. He turns around and walks outside but not before saying, "I'll make them ALL understand!"

To say we are surprised at the change of mood he kind of went through right now would be an understatement. "You guys created a monster." I point out.

"Us?!" Amethyst says in surprise.

"What about you?" Garnet asks.

"Well, I would help but I'm over here drawing up plans for my home. Not all of us have an interdimensional room we can go into inside the temple." I lazily wave my hand to the temple door. "So while I'm over here doing this, what are you all doing? Just sitting around doing nothing."

"Hey!"

"Except you Pearl. You're helping me with the planning."

"Thank you."

* * *

The situation resolved itself pretty well for Steven. He decided to give Buck a taste of his own medicine by taking his own drawing, plastering it on a shirt and shooting them all over the boardwalk during the Mayor's speech and see how he likes having people criticize his own work. In the end, he apologized and took some lessons from Steven's dad, AKA, Guitar Dad.

I got to admit, I may have jumped the gun a bit on calling him a monster but you can't blame me at the way how he was saying his planning and all. With that mess cleaned up, Connie came by the next day and gave me the measurements I would need to use in order to implement the amount of rooms and what kind they are to be for my base. With that set up, now all I need to do is get the elevator set up to take me down.

"Now… put this here… add that… you'll need to do that there… Perfect." I say with a smile as I set all the parameters for the Plug Robonoid and my droids to work with and not to exceed a set distance. That distance is just several feet away from any point of breaking through to the outside world or the temple. The gems made sure to clarify to me that the temples rooms are all part of a dimension, not actually part of the cliff mountain itself so as long as we don't tear apart the door, it's all good. With the last of the distance plugged in, their orders for what specific tasks they need to do, I press enter and let all but two of them to get to work. The Plug Robonoid starts drilling through one of the walls before going in a downward direction. "Great." With work underway, I let my two companions climb onto my shoulders before going upstairs to the front door.

"Oh! Marcus." Pearl says in surprise, her hand inches from where she was going to knock but now I'm standing in front of her. "Hello." She greets me with a smile.

"Hey Pearl." I greet back and step outside before closing the door behind me. "You need something?"

"Uhhh, no nothing I need. I thought if there was something else you need help with." She offers some help but I shake my head.

"Nah, not really. My robots are working right now. It was just a matter of adding all the data and commands and once that was done, it's just a matter of waiting at this point." I explain to her the best I can.

"That's good, that way maybe you can rest up a bit. You've kind of been working yourself ragged lately and while gems don't require rest, I know humans do." She tells me.

Now that she points it out, I have been working almost non-stop for the last couple of weeks and my body feels a little achy at this point, but nothing that makes me want to drop dead. "Yeah, I do feel a bit winded," I say as I stretch a bit, "But I'm still kicking so I'm going to at least get as much work done as I can before I even consider dropping on the couch to sleep." With that statement, I turn back to my house and grimace. "You know, in hindsight, I probably should have bought some furniture for me to fill this place. Maybe then I could actually sleep on a bed without being injured or incapacitated." I grumble to myself.

"That may have been the best course." I nod with her statement.

There is a momentary lapse of awkward quiet between us since the current topic ended.

"Oh! Right! I almost forgot." I remember what it is I was going to go do. My remembrance being from the droids on my shoulders. "Pearl?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember that small island that Steven and I first saw Sugilite, the one that had the communication hub that we needed to destroy?"

"Hmmmm…" She places a hand to her chin in thought. "Ahhh, yes. I remember."

"Do you remember which direction it's in?"

"Yyyyeesss, I believe I do. Why do you ask?"

"I want to go and scavenge what I can from there since I got nothing else to do right now." I give her my reason.

"That sounds like a good idea." She agrees with the idea as she fold her arms over her chest. "Do you need some help?" She offers.

While it's a tempting idea, I'm afraid what I got planned is more of a surprise. I glance towards the ocean before looking towards her again. "Nah. I got this."

* * *

The ride was a bit bumpy to get to the place but it was somewhat smoothing sailing towards it. As I slowly drift toward the place, I recall the events just before I shipped off.

" _Make sure to take some supplies in case you get hungry or thirsty." Pearl advises me but I wave it off._

" _I won't be gone for a day Pearl. I'm just gonna go, grab some things and come right back. Easy." I tell her as I pull off the rope from the dock._

" _But it took at least a day for Sigilite to get back. What about you?" She asks me as she follows me from the dock._

" _Because," I place my droids down and strap them and anything loose down. "Sugilite is huge and slow, this boat is probably three times faster than her." I point out to her. I rented a speed boat to get me to that place fast and easy without much chance for me to dillydally. I have an idea of what I want to get so I won't need a lot of space for it, but hopefully I can grab some small things that I can work with as well while I'm there._

" _Oh fine." She grumbles in an annoyed tone before taking a step back as I sit in the driver seat. "Just be safe."_

" _Yes, mom." I reply before turning the vehicle on. Once it roars to life in the water, I wave back to her. "See ya!"_

" _Bye!" We say our temporary goodbyes and I set this thing to full speed ahead. The water sprays back across the dock, dousing Pearl, much to her annoyance, and I go zooming forward. The water's a little choppy but it works for its smoothing sailing for me toward some prime scavenging material for me to take._

When my boat is beached at my location, I disembark with my droids following me close behind. Almost immediately, I find the destroyed remains of my target and start placing them on the boat. While I'm doing this, I instruct my droids to go into the main place and start breaking down whatever it is they can find.

As I grab a nice chunk of the first piece, I smile. "Yeah, you'll do just nice."

* * *

"Where is he?" Amethyst groans out.

"Amethyst, it's only been five minutes." Pearl says annoyed at her friends whining. "At least be a little patient."

"Well he said he had a surprise for us and I'm tired of waiting for it." Amethyst says from her laying position on the island counter.

"Patience." Garnet speaks up from her position on the couch. "I'm sure he'll be along shortly."

The Warp activates, getting everyone's attention. As they look to why it's active, they are confused to see Marcus standing there. "Hey."

"See." Garnet points to him.

"What the surprise?" Steven asks his friend excitedly as he runs up to him.

"Yeah, we want to know!" Amethyst joins up with him as well.

"Come with me and find out." Marcus waves at them to join him on the Warp. Steven and Amethyst are excited nonetheless but Garnet and Pearl are confused as to where this surprise is. Especially if it requires Warp transportation.

* * *

The Warp deactivates and everyone appears on a hill.

"Heeeeyyy! What gives? That's just the town." Amethyst points out in an annoyed tone at the familiar looking town they've been living near for a few dozen years now.

"Yes… but…" Pearl begins to protest but begins to realize that she doesn't remember any location of a Warp that had this type of view. "I don't remember a Warp being around here."

"Guy, turn around." Marcus commands of them to do. As soon as they turn around, even more questions linger in their minds as they immediately spot the lighthouse some ways away from them, and that they are right next to Marcus's brand new home. "Welcome." He says with a smile.

"But… but…" Pearl begins to say in disbelief as she shifts her view from the Warp under her feet, and the house a couple feet from them.

"Hoooow?" Garnet draws out the word as a question, just as curious as well.

"Wow!" Steven says with excitement as he rubs his hands over the Warp he's never seen before. "You can make new Warp pads?" he asks.

"Well, not really." He says, much to some of their confusions. "You guys remember the communication hub? Sugilite?" He asks them about the two. Pearl immediately remembers since he asked her before about the place but it takes the others a few seconds to remember. They nod once they remember. "After one, or two of you, got carried away…" he glances at Amethyst and Garnet, which the two of them nervously scratch their arms and heads at their fusion that almost ran amok. "You destroyed the Warp that was there. It wasn't that hard. All I had to do was gather up all the pieces of the thing, place them here and boom!" He says the last part with a smile and steps back towards his home before spreading his arms wide, gesturing to his home. "Instant access to my home and anywhere else that has a Warp." He proudly proclaims.

"Wooooaaaahhh!" Steven says in awe at the news.

"Very smart. A good way of repurposing a Warp for a now defunct location for us." Pearl compliments him.

"Nice job." Garnet gives him a thumbs up, which he smiles at.

"Soooo no surprise for us?"

*Smack*

"Ow!" Amethyst yelps after getting hit by Pearl on the back of her head.

"Well, with that surprise you've given us, I think its time we give him a surprise of our own." Pearl proposes to the others. They nod in agreement, except Amethyst who grumbles after getting hit, and except Marcus because he has no idea what for.

"What surprise?" He asks confused as they proceed to lead him into his own home. He's even more confused at where they are taking him.

"While you left to the destroyed communication hub, we went out shopping for you since you've been so busy." Pearl tells him as they walk up the stairs.

"We used your money."

"AMETHYST!" Pearl yells at the purple gem for being so blunt.

"What'd you get me?" He asks them.

"Since you've been working yourself ragged lately…" Pearl begins to say.

"And how annoying it must be sleeping on my couch." Steven adds. Since he's the one that's been sleeping a few feet away from his fellow hybrid friend, he knows how he looks whenever he wakes up from sleeping on the couch; and if the amount of bones popping, stretching, and groans is anything to go by, it's not the perfect way to sleep.

"Right, that too. So to help you relax," they open the door and Pearl gestures inside with a grand pose. "We got you this."

As he walks in, Marcus is surprised to see a bed in one of the empty bedrooms. A queen size to be exact with a mix of red and white covers and blankets, and blue pillows. "Wooooaaaahh." He says in awe at his first piece of furniture, and a bed no less. He walks over to bed and walks around it, examining it from all angles and running his hand over the soft smoothness of the bed. "Dang… thanks guys." He voices his thanks to his friends, not at all perturbed at their use of his own money without his knowledge.

"Your welcome. You deserve it after all the help you you've given us." Garnet replies with a smile.

"Let me try this out." Marcus says as he lies back on the bed, the mattress reforming to accommodate him. "Ohhhhhh, yeeeaaaahhhh. This was a good purchase." He relaxes with closed eyes, reveling in the feeling of a bed that's not when he's injured.

"Now this isn't one of those ordinary beds." Pearl begins to say as she pushes down on the mattress with her hands. "It's one of those special—"

"Pearl?"

"Yes, Garnet?" She looks to the tall gem who called her name, who points at the bed. She looks to see that Marcus has been completely knocked, a light snore emanating from his still form. "Oh."

"Hehe," Garnet lightly chuckles. "C'mon. Let's go and let him get some rest."

"Roger." Amethyst agrees to the action and promptly leaves the room with Steven and Garnet following close behind.

Pearl begins to leave the room as well but stops as she glances back to her sleeping friend. She gives him a smile before quietly closing the door to let him slumber.

 **Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope things are going well for you all. Instead of the usual stuff of working with the entirety of an episode, I give you a chapter of my own. As you may have guessed, it spans the next several episodes "Open Book", "Shirt Club" and "Story for Steven." Although that last one might not really be evident because since it's just a flashback type thing for Steven I wasn't going to devote an entire chapter to it or really mention it in the next chapter after that.**

 **Again, I hope this was good for you all and offered some clarity to his home. He's got the base of it down but still needs to work on some more things before he can really call it a base. Don't worry, you guys know what's coming up so he's got some time before things really kick up.**

 **I feel as though I may have rushed this, but I'm not sure. Hopefully you guys can understand the multiple scene and time transitions. Since this chapter spans multiple episodes, of course there's going to be a lot of time and day skipping. Sorry if it's confusing but I hope this was still a nice present for you all nonetheless. It also didn't help that my relatives came to visit so I wasn't able to focus as much as I wanted on this. Still they'll be leaving in a few days to head back to their perspective homes so I'll continue uninterrupted.**

 **I'm gonna try to get another chapter out before this year is up so if this isn't satisfactory, I want to get something else out too.**

 **Oh, I also want to add that I'm super excited for the end of January. Why? That's when the next Steven bomb is gonna be dropped on us. More specifically, January 30 is when the next set of Steven Universe episodes are supposed to be aired one day after another. Some say their finally going to space and you know what, I'm really excited at the idea of them finally going to Homeworld. You guys have seen what Marcus is capable at this point, imagine in space.**

 **With that little tidbit of information, I want to thank you all for reading, happy holidays and as always, have fun reading.**


	36. 34 The Message

I was asleep for almost a full day when I was knocked out. Holy crap was a lot more tired than I honestly thought I was. My entire body ached so much, but it was a good ache from the moment your body is so used to being one place for so long. It also didn't help that I was sleeping in my day clothes but man was the sleep appreciated. After the nap, I found that my droids were all finished with their work and they left a massive cavern for me to use and plan the construction of my new base. However I'm gonna need a massive supply of very hardened materials in order to make up the walls, floors and hallways of the rooms underground. It has to be strong enough for the stuff to take a beating for explosions in case anything happens underground, and to make sure that no earthquake or outside force would destroy or compromise its structure. I want the place to be both a base for me to work on whatever it is I find interesting or pleasing to me, and a fallback shelter in case things get hairy in any fight we may come across.

For now though, I use the materials gathered from The Iron Kings vehicles and any material gathered from Gem involved locations to make the elevator to the place. From the top, the elevator will be able to be accessed from a wall in the basement, and a moveable wall in one of the empty rooms on the first floor. It's not going to be a single person elevator or one you would expect from a skyscraper of sorts. It's a small freight elevator that's open and should be able to handle a few dozen pounds of weight in case I want to bring down a bunch of gear, weapons and materials for me to use. I have some ideas for some of the more larger pieces of equipment I would work on, but that's for another time. Right now I need to work on making the place in the first place.

For now though while I programmed them to work on the elevator feature, I went ahead and got some more furniture for my place. Nothing too big, much, I obtained some tables, chairs, kitchenware, and a couple of couches for the living area. In addition to the living room area, I got a big flat plasma screen TV. Don't know how big or how many inches, but it is big and hanging on the wall in full view of everyone who can sit on the couches and chairs in the living room. I used the satellite from when I hacked into my droids in the very first place, strapped it to my roof, ran the wires through to the TV, and in the future to my base, and jacked my way into access to some prime high quality channels.

I don't know if I'm actually going to take advantage of some of the movie channel, but I like the option.

"There you go… perfect." I mutter to myself as I finish hanging the TV on the wall. I've always wanted a type of home like this, with all the furnishings I plan to get, and thanks to some of my… unique actions, it's going to be good.

I take a step back and admire my work.

*RRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

*Crash*

I don't really acknowledge the loud screeching noise that's cutting through the air and lightly shakes the ground and building around me. Instead, I stare as my TV falls off the wall and crashes into the ground. The screen breaks in a million pieces, the frame cracks, the wires rip out and the inside wiring of the machine are sticking out of from the cracks and broken screen.

My eye twitches.

"YOU MOTHER—!"

* * *

"What the hell us going on?!" I yell as I step off of the Warp and stalk forward. I'm also forced to cover my ears with my hands because of the increased volume here in the beach house than at my home.

"What's happening?!" Steven yells at the same time as me except he comes in from the outside.

"It's the Wailing Stone!" I manage to hear Pearl answer. Both she, Amethyst and Garnet are in the same boat as Steven and I, forced to cover our ears because of the sound.

"Make it stop!" Amethyst cries out.

"It just activated on its own!" Pearl informs me as I walk up to her.

"Why?!" I ask but since I they aren't doing anything, I don't expect an answer.

"We don't know!" Okay maybe not an answer to solve this.

"It won't shut up!" Amethyst whines as Garnet walks up to the infernal stone. I'm curious as to what she's going to do it to get it to shut up. _'Maybe she's going to throw it into the sea, break it into a million pieces, I can probably melt it—'_

*Think*

She slams her gauntlet down on top of it, hitting the button and shutting it down.

*….REEEEEEE*

Momentarily. The machine continues screeching after a few second of silence.

"Stand back!" Pearl says in an annoyed tone and walks up to the stone. With ease, she bubbles the thing, deafening the noise to near nothing. Although I don't like the throbbing the bubble is exhibiting. "Ha, it worked, now we can get back to..." She's interrupted as the bubble grows bigger and bigger until it pops, continuing the noise again.

"Ahh…!" We all cry out at the sudden noise again.

Before I can think of any sort of solution, Steven runs up to the stone and sticks his arm through the hole. After first, its silent but then he opens his mouth.

*Bwwaaaaaaaaaaaa!*

' _Oh god this is even worse!'_ I squeeze my hands against my ears even more as somehow the stone transfers the noise through Steven's vocal cords, making him sound like a loud goat in distress.

I run up to the kid and pull him off the stone while Garnet walks up to it and stuffs one of the couch cushions into the hole, significantly muffling the noise. She grabs the rest of the cushions from the couch and places them all around the Wailing Stone, quieting the stone to almost complete silence. For some reason, she also grabs Steven from my arms and places him on top of the stone. "I don't understand, that thing has laid dormant since we found it." Garnet says.

"I haven't heard a Wailing Stone activate since we used them for the rebellion, and I've never heard it sound like that!" Pearl informs us.

"They're used to communicate, right?" I ask and she nods.

"Someone is trying to send us a message." Garnet confirms what I've been thinking of.

"But to us specifically? Or is it a wide range signal, meant for anyone to pick up?" I ask to no one in particular. There have been cases where someone won't send a message to a specific person but will instead send it on open channels in the hopes of getting any sort of response.

"Who knows how or who it is?" Pearl says worriedly. "We've rounded up all the Wailing Stones on Earth, and we're not sending this message to ourselves. Unless..." She looks down with an annoyed look at the purple gem. "Amethyst?! Is this a prank?!" She says irked at the idea. _'Oh please let this be a prank so we can end this right now.'_

"No way!" Amethyst cries. _'Damn.'_ "I want it to stop! I don't like it!" She angrily says as she grips her head tightly.

"If it's not coming from Earth, then a Gem must be sending this message from space." Garnet says.

"From space?" I question to under my breath. _'So far, I only know of Homeworld from space… but they have conquered other planets before… someone else?'_

"Is that what some Gems sound like?" Steven asks as he walks up to me.

"No, no, we should be hearing a voice. Maybe this signal is too advanced for the Wailing Stone to process. That would explain the distorted audio." Pearl tries to reason for the messed up noise.

"Advanced?"I question while placing a hand to my chin. "Compared to the rebellion, technology has advanced considerably, as evident from my droids and the Kindergartens tech specs. You may be on to something Pearl." I give my best reasoning for it.

"Audio…" I look at Steven as he says the word. "My daddy-o knows audio!" He says happily with a smile.

"Uh… you mean Greg." Amethyst asks uneasily.

"Yeah!"

"I don't know…" Pearl is unsure about the idea as well.

I decide to voice my opinion on the idea. "Well, Greg is the musician of our group. If anyone of us has to deal with music, audio, acoustics in general for anything really, it would be him. He may not be a gem, but he can probably still help. Beside, you got a better idea?" I ask with a shrug.

"Uhhh—"

"Don't whine, let's try it." Garnet interrupts Amethyst before she can whine.

* * *

"I can't believe it! You need help with sound stuff?" Greg happily says as he sifts through his van looking for something while the rest of us sit on cushions in the sand. "You've come to the right guy! Ah ha! The Lubitz Cardioid Condenser 680!" He pulls out some sort of giant foamy microphone things. "It's got warm tone without too much top end."

"Uh, plus it's got a big honking sponge thing." Amethyst points out.

"I know, isn't it awesome!" He comments with a smile before going over to the stone. I quickly cover my ears just as he pulls out the cushion in the stone, allowing the noise to spew forth once again. It doesn't hit me as hard because of my quick thinking but the others are nearly thrown on their backs. Greg quickly plugs in his Condenser foam thingy and the noise deafens almost completely. _'Damn, that's some quality… stuff.'_ He goes over to his soundboard and starts moving some sliders and knobs around. "Now I'm going to add some reverb and some low octave effects, I'm also adding some fuzz 'cause who couldn't use more fuzz? Now if I directly input the Wailing Stone and put it through a flanger we might get what you're looking for."

The others look at me for some sort of clarification as to what he's saying. "I have… no idea what that is." I answer. _'You can give questions about guns, swords, melee weapons, armor, technological whatever… but you kind of got me in a box when it comes to music. I like it as much as the next guy, but I really don't know the techno babble when making it._ '

"Flangers aside do you really think a signal like this is compatible with your analog devices?" Pearl questions him.

"Don't worry dad. It'll work!" Steven uses some microphone device to distort his voice, most likely for comedic effect. Which it works because I smile.

"Advanced technology aside, music and sound are all a form of noise. No matter how advanced the equipment, you can't really change the base composition of sound in general." I try to give some faith in Greg. "You got this man?" I ask him.

"Sure do. Now let me just…" He trails off as he finishes his tuning. "Well, here goes nothing."

*RRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

The sound comes back again only this time it's even worse and louder than before.

"This is even worse!" Amethyst yells out over the deafening noise.

"I'm sorry!" Greg apologizes. I quickly take the initiative and launch myself on the amplifier that's connected. Being so close to it makes my ears throb heavily but I manage to grab the volume and bring it down to a manageable level.

"Uh." Amethyst sighs in relief at the lowered sound. I breathe a little heavy a my head throbs.

"Nice one Marcus." Greg says.

I look at him, "What?" I ask because it's a little hard to hear him.

"Nice one!" He says a little louder, making sure I hear him this time and I do.

"Thanks." I reply and bring the volume up a bit more, enough that it's still loud so we can figure out any background noise but not to the point of its loudness like before. "You got this?"

"Yeah, sure do."

"You can do it dad, you're the audio daddy-o." Steven encourages his father, making him smile.

"You got that right Steven." Greg replies, now more determined than before. He starts fiddling with some of his instruments, making the noise fluctuate in different tones.

"It sounds like music." Steven says. When I close my eyes and focus on listening, I can hear it. _'He's right… sort of. It's very faint and I can barely make it out.'_

"Yeah, that's really nice." Greg mutters and the noise takes a more musical tone to it. "Yes, yes. Woo hoo!" He cheers. Only a music enthusiast like Greg would be that hyped for music he discovered right now.

"But, it's not supposed to be music. It's supposed to be a message!"

"Oh, Okay hold on, I got this." Pearl manages to get him back on track. He starts fiddling with the noise again, making it fluctuate again. "It's changing!"

"It almost sounds like a voice." Again, Steven is on the money. Very faintly I can hear some sort of voice but its too distorted to make heads or tails.

"Almost got it!" The noise gets a bit clearer and clearer until— "Oh great." Greg groans as everything goes silent.

"What's happening, where's the signal?" Pearl asks, curious about why everything stopped.

I notice a small plume of smoke rising from the front of his van. "Greg, did the power…?"

"Yep, looks like the vans battery couldn't handle all this." He says disappointingly.

"Damn, so close too." I mutter.

"I had a feeling this wouldn't work," Pearl says as she stands up and stalks around a bit, frustrated at the failed attempt. "There's just no way that Greg's equipment can interface with our ancient Gem technology." She criticizes his stuff.

"Ah… come on Pearl, you can't be ready to give up yet." Steven says to her but she's having none of it.

"Look, we just got to keep trying. Sure we don't have the latest and greatest Gem tech here, but—" Greg starts to say but is interrupted by Garnet. She remove Greg's condenser device, making the noise start for a second before she puts back the couch cushions and noise stops altogether.

"It's okay Greg, you tried." Garnet tries to sympathize with him by placing her hand on his shoulder but it feels like a lie. She turns to the rest of us. "Back to the temple." She announces before looking to me specifically. "C'mon Marcus, you're our expert on gem tech at this point. Maybe we can brainstorm and figure something else out." With that, she jumps off toward the temple.

"What a waste of time." Pearl grumbles before jumping off as well.

"See you later… Gregory." Amethyst says and jumps off too.

Feeling a little awkward about being left alone with them, I look at Greg while walking backwards. "Something'll come up. Whether us or you, it will!" I say those last words before sprinting off to the beach house. It doesn't take me long to make it to the place and make it up to the stairs before spotting the others inside sitting on the couch near the door and window. I walk in and immediately gain their attention. "Alright, so what's the plan?" I ask as I sit on the couch too.

"We were hoping you would have an idea." Garnet tells me. Looking at the others, they nod in agreement.

With a sigh, I think for a second as I stare at the Wailing Stone in front of me. I can barely even hear its screaming at this point so at least I can concentrate without having my eardrums being blown out. "Hmm," I moan before leaning back and crossing my arms. "You said you gather all the Wailing Stones right?" I ask.

"That's right." Pearl confirms it. "The rest are in the temple."

"Alright then. Maybe you guys can bring me another one of them. Chances are if they're on the same open frequency as this one, they'll be screaming like this one here. What I want to do is deactivate it, crack it open, and see if I can find the right frequency or wavelength it's using. With that, I maaay be able to make something to catch the signal and translate it into something that we can interpret." I explain my best plan to them. I don't know how full-proof this idea is but on top of this thing being annoying as hell to have screaming all the time, this could be a message we can make use of. "However, this is all speculation and it'll be some time before I can make heads or tails of this."

"How long?" Garnet asks in her usual stern neutral tone.

I give another sigh as I rub my forehead, "Days… weeks… months…" I guess the amount of time needed.

"We don't have days or weeks or months!" Amethyst cries out.

"I know we don't have that kind of time." I say in a frustrated tone before calming down. "But until I crack open one of these Wailing Stones and find out how they catch signals and whatnot, I can only guess right now."

They groan at the news but nod nonetheless. I don't like that type of situation for us to be in but while I'm pretty well-versed in Gem tech at this point in my life, I'm winging it and learning as I go. It sucks but this is the best I got at this point. "Alright, if that's the case then we better get started right away. Pearl, why don't you—"

*Slam*

"I just want to help, have some faith in—" Greg busts in with Steven right behind him, interrupting Garnet before noticing he's not looking at us.

"Eh-hem."

"We're over here." Amethyst and I get his attention.

"I know my audio equipment seems like a pile of Earth junk to y'all but—" He begins to plead his case before Garnet interrupts him.

"Greg, it's okay." She calmly tells him. While she says it's okay, he doesn't think so. Not at all, considering the look of annoyed anger he has about him.

"No it's not, you guys don't give up on anything, except for me. Come on... it's not like I can make it any worse!" He firmly tells us.

The gems looks at each other in silent contemplation before looking to me on my input. "Audio is his expertise, regardless of who makes it. He didn't get the chance to decode it because his vans battery shorted out. We fix that problem," I look to Greg, "I think he has a better shot of figuring this out than I can. Quicker too." I back up Greg on this. They look at each other before nodding, agreeing to the plan.

* * *

' _Video… damn how could I have not thought of that as an option… Then again, I don't really know Homeworld to be the kind to watch TV in the first place. Computer screens yes but TV… nope, drawing a blank.'_ Shaking my head of the thought, I make sure the jumper cables are ready and the battery monitor I have attached are working properly. "Everything's connected." I tell Pearl once everythings attached to the battery properly.

"Good." She replies before looking to the other ends of the cables. "Okay, go for it Garnet." Order given, she emits an electrical discharge through the cables, supercharging the vans battery in an instant. _'At least now I know who to go to when I need a jump.'_ The monitor I have attached to said battery skyrockets on the amount of juice it's given, making me smile.

"We're good here."

"Alright Amethyst, try it now." Pearl next signals for Amethyst to start the van.

"I've never started a car with a key before." I hear her say, which gets my attention.

"Wait, you've started a car without a key before?" I ask curiously. _'Does that mean she's hotwired a vehicle?'_

She ignores me however and simply turns the key, starting the engine. "Ha, that's way easier!"

"The battery is ready to go." Pearl announces to the others in the back.

"Let's get this show on the road." I add as we make our way to our sound experts.

"The Wailing Stone is ready." Steven says once the condenser is inside the stone.

"Ready with the video cord, Steven?" Greg asks his son while he's ready with his equipment.

"Ready." Steven then plugs in the cord to the TV in the back of Greg's van, activating it and bringing up the usual black and white fuzz screen with the noise to go along with it.

"Is that it?" Pearl asks.

"No, it's just static when something is having trouble trying to connect to the TV. We need a clearer picture. Greg?" I call the man's name.

"Just a second. I got this." He replies and starts fiddling with his controls. Unlike before with just the music and audio, the sound was hard to make out but this time with the screen, the noise is more manageable, sounds slightly better and the screen fluctuates as it tries to right the image.

"I hear something." Steven says. When I focus on my hearing again, he's right. The noise is still garbled but I can make out some words here and there.

"Come on!" Greg groans as he desperately tries to find the right frequency for us to see. We lean in a little closer after everything starts to make sense until—

"Marcus! Steven!" My breath hitches and my eyes widen as I see her. _'Lapis…'_

"Lapis!" Steven I hear Steven say in awe at seeing her again after so long. It's hard for me to form words at this point after I remember her leaving all that time ago.

"I did it!" Greg announces ecstatically at his accomplishment.

"I can't believe my flipping eyes!" Pearl exclaims in surprise at the success. I grip my fists tightly at the drabble going on around me.

"Everyone—"

"SHUT UP!" I yell, interrupting Garnet and getting everyone to quiet down so I can listen to her.

"I hope you're able to hear this. There's a Gem looking for you two, she even knew your names. I don't know how! I didn't tell her, I swear! She's on her way to Earth, and she's not alone." _'She looks… scared.'_ "Steven, Marcus, Homeworld is not the way it used to be. Everything here is so advanced! I can't even understand it. There's no way anything on Earth can stand up to it. Please, don't put up a fight, It'll only lead to devastation." She says so… scared. She really does sound terrified. The video cuts off and we're left on the static screen again.

"It's Peridot," I hear Pearl say somberly. "She must be talking about Peridot."

"She's coming for us!" Amethyst yelps as she grabs her head in fear.

"Lapis, she sounds so unhappy…" I hear Steven say.

"She does…" I say tiredly, making him look at me. I sigh and rub my eyes, "She really does."

Pearl and Amethyst start freaking out about the situation and start talking amongst themselves, wondering what we're going to do or how screwed we are. This whole time, I've been getting vague information about Homeworld, how they are, how much they've advanced and so on… but this is the first hand point of view I have of the place from a friend. A… a good friend who's really… really scared.

"Woo." Garnet pipes up.

"Huh?" The others say in confusion, but she simply gets my attention.

"We did it." She says.

"What?" Pearl asks confused.

"We got the message." Garnet clarifies.

"But—"

"It's got!" Garnet says sternly, interrupting Amethyst from saying anything or focusing on the message itself. It takes me a few seconds but I smile nonetheless at her actions. _'Clever.'_ She walks up and extends her hand to Greg. He looks on in awe at the significance of her gesture. He takes it but instead of shaking, she claps her other hand on-top of his. "Thank you Greg, we would not have received this message without your help." She tells him sincerely.

"You… you're welcome." He tells her, stuttering his words slightly and almost tearing up at the compliment. Considering what he is and who he was involved with, that's about as much praise they've given him since they've known him.

"My dad is… the best!" Steven gets all of our attention by using that auto tuning voice box to change his voice.

"Oh my gosh, Steven's a robot! Help, I can't relate to my robot son!" Greg cry's out good heartedly about his sons actions.

"My mind is the internet, I know every continuity mistake ever made on television." Steven says again in that loud robot voice. I give a smirk to their actions but… it's sort of fake at this point. Not with other things on my mind.

They don't see it but I do. The gems look at each other with some form of uncertainty amongst them as Steven and his dad kid around. This is bigger than they think. The Gems start heading back to the temple, letting the father-son duo have their fun.

"Hey Garnet." I call out the gems name. She turns back to me. "Nice job back there."

"I don't know what your—"

"You forget who I am?" I say with a smirk.

She stares at me for a few silent seconds, before she reciprocates the smile and nods. "No, I guess I didn't."

I extend a hand to shake hers and she takes it. We give one firm shake before we let go. I turn back to the TV and my smile disappears before turning back to her. "I should get started… shouldn't I?"

She nods, "You should." I nod back, in agreement with the unspoken question between us. "Could you get the wailing stone?"

"Sure." I turn back and start heading to said item. "I'll see you back at the temple."

"See ya." She replies before walking off towards the beach house with the others. I have to admit, I sometimes forget how crafty she can be. A lot of times, she can be really blunt when it comes to some sensitive subjects here and there but now… she doesn't want Steven or his father to worry about the potential consequences of this message to have on us. Smart.

"Hey Marcus." Greg calls out to me as he and his son walk up. "My son and I are going to go get a bite to eat before turning in. Wanna come?" He offers.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I think I'll clean up here and turn in." I refuse as I go to start unplugging things.

"Oh, let us help." Steven offers but I wave him down.

"Nah nah nah nah. You've done enough, especially you Greg." He smiles at that. "I've haven't done nearly enough to help as I would prefer and you know what, it's the least I can do."

"You sure?" He asks and I nod.

"Positive. Get going. Still need to take the Wailing Stone back to the temple anyway." I add.

"Well, alright then." Greg finally agrees to it and taps his sons shoulder. "Come on, let's go get some fry bits you love so much."

"Yay! Fry bits!" Steven cries out happily with his arms thrown into the air and running to the boardwalk.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Greg calls out to his son and chases after the enthusiastic kid.

I chuckle at the kids enthusiasm. Once their far enough away, I grab the condenser and pull it out of the Wailing Stone.

*REEEE—*

The sound immediately goes off again once I pulled it out, surprising me enough to plug it back in. _'The hell?… but we got the message! Why is it still going?'_

"Marcus…" I'm thrown out of my thoughts at my name being called. My attention is brought back to the TV, with Lapis still there but this time she looks worried. "Please, becareful. You didn't give up when you were helping me and I don't want you to get hurt. At all." She looks away before looking back at the screen. "I… don't want to lose you. I can't lose you! Not after you and Steven helped me when I was so vulnerable. Please…" She's almost begging. "Don't fight. Please… I just…" She begins to say but she stops. The video cuts off again and I'm left with the white noise of the TV.

I stare at the screen for I don't know how long. That last message was meant for me… and she really is scared about this. _'…What did you find… Lapis?'_

With a sigh, I pull out the condenser.

"…"

Nothing else comes forth.

 **Surprised by how short this was… but nonetheless I'm satisfied with the result. As to be expected, things are starting to heat up for our earthly protectors and I don't know about you but I'm getting excited about getting to Homeworld's arrival. It's getting good here and I thank you all for your support.**

 **Like no joke, all of you who have been here since the beginning and the recent arrivals, thank you. Seriously. Here's the thing everyone, I would normally save this for after 'Jail Break' since that would be a more appropriate time, but it's the end of the year so I want to give this to you guys as a New Years gift.**

 **I never thought my story would get this popular and it's all thanks to those of you giving me a chance. As I write this, the view counter for this story has already hit over 30,000 views. I may be the one that writes the content but its all of you who took the interest and read through it.**

 **Thank you everyone, I hope to continue to impress you all in the future, and as always,**

 **Have fun reading, and a Happy New Year.**


	37. 35 Political Power

I'm unnerved a bit because of the cryptic message Lapis sent us. The idea that actual Homeworld soldiers are coming to Earth… It's a little jarring. For awhile, we only were just dealing with corrupted monsters, machines and robots that they sent, but actual people?

I can't take this lying down, or get cocky, not when Lapis was so freaked out about the whole thing. We were friends for only a short time… we shared more with each other than anyone else I think. I guess I never really took into account of just how much of an impact Steven and I had with her when we saved her from the mirror if it meant she risked sending a message to us.

' _Stay safe Lapis.'_

Still with the message sent and all, and unless they have Warp technology embedded into their ships, then its going to be more than a few days before they get here so I need to get things squared away. For some of my mundane tasks, I managed to fix my TV after it fell, much to my relief. Sure I could have gone and got a new one, but I already had everything set up with that one so I'm glad I didn't have to do any unnecessary manual labor.

I also halted production on my home since whatever I can scrounge up on Earth to make the walls wouldn't be enough to stand up to whatever Homeworld has to offer. Right now, I need every available weapon at my disposal and any advantages to go along with it. Using the Replicator, thankfully still in the same place as its always been, I made a large abundance of ammo and magazines for all my weapons so I can have several for each gun. The plan is to take them and place them at key points all across the town so in case the fighting moves there, I can switch out to something more appropriate in case I need to. For now, I need to make sure everything is in tip top shape. By doing that, I go ahead and lay out all my arms and armaments on the floors of my home and instruct my droids to start repairing them of anything that seems out of place: A loose spring, worn-out firing pin, cracked frame, anything of the sort. Because of the intricacies of these repairs, it's not going to be completed anytime soon so while that's going on, I'm helping the others with another plan they've got going on in the works.

Albeit a little… reluctantly.

"Marcus, is the robonoid ready?" Pearl calls out to me once she picks out a nice spot to do her cruel experiment.

"Yes." I grumble as I stalk up to her with my droid under one of my arms and Amethyst and Garnet flanking me. "It's not a mere robonoid anymore! It's my droid."

"Yes, we know! You won't shut up about it and you've said that about a hundred times." Amethyst pipes up from behind me.

"Yeah, well… I still don't like this." I voice my discomfort again as we stop in front of Pearl.

"You've said that same number of times as well." Garnet points out.

"Well, it's true!" I say annoyingly. They decided that if Peridot were to use anymore types of robonoids against us then we would need some sort of way to disable them all in one go. And since I'm the only one of us who has the only working FORMER robonoids at his disposal, one of my little guys is going to make the sacrifice for the greater good.

"Regardless," She walks up to me and grabs my droid from my hands. I don't let go. We subtly struggle over the little guy before I'm forced to let go with a groan. "Ugh! We have everything we need for the experiment and Steven," She looks over at the temple. "Is home fast asleeeep?!" She begins to say but for some reason she freaks out bad at the last part.

"Pearl, what's wron—?"

"Hey guys."

"JESUS!" I yell out loud at the voice behind me. To all of our surprise, Steven is standing right here in front of us with a smile on his face. "HOW?! How do you keep doing that?" I ask incredulously. Seriously a lot of times, more than I can count I think, this kid has somehow appeared out of nowhere and surprised the crap out of me.

"… Mm-mmm." He answers with a shrug.

I let out a sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose, "Just… what are you doing here?"

"Yes, Steven! Its way past your bed time. You should really go back to the house!" Pearl advises him to do.

"What?" He asks, not alright with that bit of advice. "I don't want to miss... whatever this is. What is this?" He asks curiously.

"Yes, guys please. Tell him." I talk in a snarky attitude. "Tell him what it is your going to do and how you're going to do it? Go on. Go go." It should be pretty evident at this time that I don't like people messing with my stuff. Especially the ones that I spent weeks cracking their security coding, adding my own security measures, upgrading them and so on and so forth.

"Pearl got lonely, so she made herself a robot friend."

"Ugh." I groan as I slap my face with my hand at Amethyst's comment.

"It's not a robot friend," She begins to say in an annoyed tone. "It's a robot disruptor. It should produce a localized energy blast so when Peridot shows up to..." She freezes, remembering who she's talking too and tries to think of an excuse. "...Meet with us, we'll have something that can knock out all her robonoids." She drops my droid in front of the make-shift EMP machine she made and ushers us back. "Everything's as how it should be, correct?" She directs the question to me.

"Ughhhhh, yes Pearl it is. I removed the upgrades, revoked my security measures, replaced the old ones, and set it back to its factory settings. It just as how it was when we first encountered them." I explain to her again about my work. She wanted me to set my droid back to the original robonoid settings and schematics so that way we have the most accurate representation of Peridot's robonoids as possible.

"They have factory settings?" Garnet asks confused.

"Surprisingly yes they do." I answer calmly, overall still a little stumped at them having that function in the first place. I expect it from a simple race, in comparison, like humanity but for something like the Gems, not really.

"Alright, now stand back everyone!" Pearl instructs with a mad look on her face as she gets ready with a remote in her hands. With a simple press of the button, the machine starts rumbling and shaking a bit before the little smiling ball on top of it grows until…

*POP*EEEEEEEEEEEEE*

"UGH!" We all groan out as the tiny thing pops a lot more loudly than I thought it was supposed and sends a wave of energy in all directions. The force of it sends us all flying onto our backs and sending a loud continuous ringing noise amongst the atmosphere around us. We are all dazed for a few seconds until we sit up and examine my unmovable droid.

"We did it!" Steven cheers loudly at the success.

My droid jumps up onto his feet and walks idly around.

"Woohoo!" I cheer loudly with arms raised. The Gems give me an annoyed look but I keep my grin. "Hey, if it was your stuff getting experimented on by someone else, you would be happy to see it's unharmed.

"Ugh." Amethyst groans however at seeing the failed experiment and flops down onto her bacl.

"Well, you knocked out all the lights in town." Steven points out in hopes of lifting their spirits about the failure. As I look to Beach City, he's right. The place was turned on just a second ago and now the entire place is completely shut down, like a ghost town. Usually in the dead of night you'll see street lights and some porch lights on some houses on but not this time. It's all dead.

"Wow, he's right. You took out the whole thing. Nice." I comment at their work. It may not have disabled my droid but I'm still impressed with the results. AND she used some hairdryers to make the damn thing! _'… I should get the blueprints from her.'_

"Steven, that was not the point of the—" She begins to point out what it was that was supposed to happen but sighs instead. "Alright, that was a start!" She tries to be chipper about it. "Now I'm going to need to take some parts out of the washing machine. Steven, Marcus, you might have to wear the same shirt for a while."

"Aw man." I groan.

"No problem!" Steven says casually, and in a flourish of movement, he takes off his shirt to reveal that he's got the exact same one right under it.

We all stare at him as to why he did that. "Whhhhhhyyyyyyyy?" I draw out the question.

* * *

Despite Steven's questionable actions, we all turned in since it was getting late and with the power out their wasn't much we could do to chill out or bide out time. When morning came, I found two other results of the city-wide blackout that irked and then astounded me. Firstly, all my electrical equipment was disabled as well. My phones, laptops, tablet, the scopes on my weapons, laser sights, flashlights, all dead and not working. I was annoyed at that revelation but thankfully my droids were all still operational so them working on fixing my stuff went uninterrupted. The second thing I noticed was that my house still had power. I was confused at first about how my place still had power but then I remembered what I was using to power the place. After I confirmed it, I was happy to note the shielded EMP potential that my home has because of the power source I salvaged from the Kindergarten. Even so, with not much for me to do there I kept the lights shut off so that way people won't be coming by and asking why my home still has power and theirs didn't. After all, my droids are still working on my stuff and I would prefer for no one to ask questions about them.

Still with not much for me to do right now, I've decided to work on my IED's to pass the time. It's been awhile since I last worked on them and I need to make sure their ordinance still work and not unstable in any way.

"Mmmm." I look up and see Steven barely waking up and trudging down the stairs from his bed.

"Morning Steven." I greet him.

"Mm-mmm." He barely regards as me as he goes over to the fridge, opens the freezer, and lets out a wide mouthed yawn as he pulls out some microwavable Crying Breakfast friends food item from it. The thing looks barely frozen as pieces of ice fall off and it looks slightly damp.

"Uh, Steven, the powers still— oh okay then." I begin to warn him about the power but he ignores me and places his desired food item in the microwave and presses some buttons to try to get it to work. When it doesn't work, he gets annoyed.

"What's wrong with the— Ow!" He yelps out as he accidentally presses the open button and makes the door swing open, smacking him in the face. "Ugh…!" He groans as he grabs his microwavable food item in annoyed anger. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"Steven," He finally looks up as he notices me at the counter with one of my monster truck RC IED's in front of me. "The powers still out bro. No microwavables for you." I inform him with a head shake.

"Still?" He questions, and I nod. "Aw man."

"Don't worry, I'll go into town and see if there's anything else we can eat that wasn't spoiled by the power outage." I offer to him, which he smiles at me for.

"Thanks Marcus." He says and I go back to working. "Huh?" I hear him say in confusion but that's followed by a few knocks at the door. Looking in the same direction as him, we see that it's Mayor Dewey at the door. _'What's he doing here? And why does he look like he's about to have a freak out?'_ I think as Steven walks up to the door and greets the distraught human. "Mayor Dewey?"

"Hello there young Universe. Any of your sisters home?"

"Sisters?" I mutter to myself at his question. _'Does he mean the Gems?'_

"My… sisters?" Steven asks in confusion as well.

"Your caretakers! You know...the tall one, the purple one, the hot one."

"THE WHAT HOT WHAT?!" I exclaim loudly in confusion at the mayors words. _'The tall one… Garnet. The purple one… Amethyst… The hot one… Pearl? I mean I know she is hot and all, but I guess I'm really surprised that someone else thinks so other than me. Let alone hear it like that.'_

Thankfully, they ignore my outburst and continue on with their conversation. Steven probably doesn't know the significance of that statement and I think the Mayor is a bit more preoccupied with the power situation. "Look, the power is out and I've been mayor long enough to know they had something to do with it." _'I was right. Still, out of all the people, HE thinks Pearl is hot? Wow.'_ I shake my head of the thought and solder a wire to the explosive. Good thing he's not paying me much attention.

"My sisters?" Steven is still confused about the whole thing.

"Is there anyone else I can talk to about this?" The mayor asks him.

"…Marcus!"

"Crap." I groan at my name being called by him. After placing my tools down, I get up and walk over to the door. "Yeah?"

"You! You live here?!" He finally acknowledges me and exclaims in confusion. "But I thought your house was finished being built?"

"Yeah, it is, but I still need to buy furniture for the place. So I'm crashing here until I find the best ones for my place." I explain. A bit of a lie since I CAN sleep there now but he doesn't need to know that. "Anyway, what do you want?" I ask impatiently because I reaaaallly don't like politics.

"Yes, well, the city is still without power and I've come here to find out how long until it comes back on? And don't try to deny anything! I know for a fact that whenever danger or odd things happen, it usually ends up here." He points an accusatory finger at me.

I stay silent for a few seconds as I stare at the finger in front of me before calmly pushing it down. Once that's out of the way, I turn back to the inside of house. "Hey Pearl!"

"Coming!" She replies and steps out of the temple from her room carrying my droid. As I look back to the mayor, I raise a brow of confusion as he seems to blush and tries to fix his collar. "Oh, can I help you?" Pearl asks as she walks up to us, standing next to me and behind Steven.

"Yes." The mayor says in a dumbfounded tone. _'Geez dude, chill out.'_ Evidently he does because he tense up. "Oh hi!" He places himself in a more business-like stature. "Beach city is currently experiencing a wide spread power outage—"

"Oh, don't worry about that," She interrupts him. "The power should be back on as early as tonight or as late as... never."

"What?"

"Never coming back?!"

The both of us say in confusion, some a lot more loudly than others, at the idea of the power never coming back on. I have my own power supply so that's taken care of at my place but I don't like the idea of my electronic devices now defunct. Not when I have so much data and functions on them that would be a pain the ass to recreate on new ones. "Yyyeeeessss?" She phrases her answer as more of a question at the awkwardness.

"No, no, no! It has to come back!" _'And there's the freakout.'_ "The people of Beach City can't handle a situation like this, they need their electronic distractions so they won't know that this town is a magnet for disaster!" The mayor hysterically says.

"Oh, don't be dramatic. I saw humans get on fine without power for millennia. You used to hunt and gather, ha ha, what happened to that?" She asks harmlessly.

I place a hand on her shoulder, making her look at me. "We got smart Pearl." I pat her. "We got smart… and we got lazy. We used our intelligence to make our lives easier and because of that, lazier. It's a shame really." It does suck when you think about it. We have all this potential and all this intelligence going for us, but a lot of times when the opportunity to be lazy or have an easy life presents itself, more often than not people will choose the easier part.

"That doesn't make sense. I've barely seen you become lazy since you've been here." Pearl points out. True, a lot of time's I'll be working on one thing or another without much time for me to laze about but that's because I sometimes get antsy doing nothing.

"Well, I'm not fully human, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

"HELLO?!" We tear ourselves from our small conversation to see the mayor really ticked off. Probably about how casual we are despite the situation with the town.

"Hello."

"Hey." Pearl and I greet him.

"Listen, you don't understand, sure things seem calm now in the light of day but when the sun goes down so does the town!" He says the last part in a more serious tone.

"He's right." Steven sides with the mayor on the subject at hand. "Mayor Dewey, this is our responsibility, we'll help you clean up this mess." He completely ropes us in dealing with the situation.

"No we won't!" I hear Garnet call out behind us. With that declaration, Pearl turns around and walks back in.

"We'll help you—"

*Slam*

And I'm gone too.

"I'll help you clean up this mess."

* * *

"Well, that'll be an interesting adventure for him." I say as I walk with Pearl to the others who are now chilling on the couch.

"What was that about?" Amethyst asks as she sits down on the couch upside down.

"The mayor came by to ask for our assistance in repairing the towns power problem." Pearl explains to them.

"And Garnet here was gracious enough to deny the man our assistance outright." I add with a sarcastic smile about the magenta gem.

"Do you want to help?"

"No. I don't like him." I reply to her question.

"But you let Steven go along with him?" She answers but it's phrased kind of like a question.

"He he, I may not like him but the guy's harmless. Plus he won't let anything happen to Steven, not if his reputation counts on it." I point out. The guy may annoy me, but he's a stickler for when it comes to his reputation so if he lets a kid like Steven get hurt, not only will he have to deal with me and the Gems, but his rep will inevitably screwed.

"I guess." Amethyst says.

"Anyway, need anything else for me to do?" I offer my help to them since my IED's was just for me to kill time. They look at each other for a second before they start thinking their own plans.

"I have an idea." Pearl comes up with one.

* * *

I never saw those laser light cannons in action but from the description of the Red Eye that the others told me about and the power one of those things have, I feel comfortable having the Quartizine Trio with us. Pearl thought up the idea of us to use the laser light cannons we have in storage at Rose's armory as sort of artillery pieces to use against their ships when they arrive. I also spent some time strapping the Quartizine Trio into a sort of metal conveyor belt I have set up under the balcony so that way when our enemies arrive, just a simple press of a button and they move into firing position.

I couldn't stay long after because I with how they others seemed, they were really starting to get worried about the upcoming battle that could take place from now to the next few weeks. That's a lot of time to be anticipating the inevitable when something will pop up out of nowhere and try to wreck us. With that said, I started my plan to start placing my weapons around town. After putting a large majority of my guns in their respective cases or what can fit for them in the loading area of my truck, and the rest that couldn't be in the back in the backseat of my vehicle, I drove around town to places I think that have adequate spots for me to place them around and to make sure their well hidden from the civilian population. After all, I don't want some random person finding my gun and either get hurt playing with it, or call the police and that's something I do not want to deal with right now or ever for that matter.

While a lot of the assault rifle, shotgun and SMG variety's were obviously placed on the ground level and where I could easily grab them, I had to be a bit more creative as to where some of my more destructive weapons could go. For instance, I hid the KIVARRI sniper rifle near the Ferris wheel so if need be, I can scale the thing and take out my targets from a distance. My Barrett .50 cal is on top of the water tower since that has almost a complete clear sightline in all directions. I also moved around to place a couple of my LMG's in good cover firing positions and my pistols were littered all over the town as well.

It took the majority of the day since by the time I could get most of what I have set up, the sun was already starting to set. "Man, that took a good chunk of time." I say in a tired tone as I drive calmly through the town towards home. "With the first line of defense set up, and the second done, I still need to place some explosives as well. If conventional rounds don't cut it, then I need to use things with more Oomph to them." I mutter. _'Don't know if I'll get the chance to actually use these in the fight, but I think I'd rather have them there now and not need them, than not have them there when I really really need them.'_

As I start making my way home, the soft sound of my truck trudging along the pavement is accompanied by loud angry distant voices and banging metal. When I turn the corner to go over the wooden boardwalk and down to the beach, I look and see that I am behind a large crowd of people that have gathered in front of that Mayor Dewey campaign van with a big head, _'Much like the real guy.'_ And are pushing against it, making it rock back and forth. I stop and watch with wide eyes as they tip over the large vehicle with the guy the head depicts inside. "Wow. I know the guy was annoying, and an idiot, but damn. What did you do to make the people that angry they want to— Is that Steven?" I interrupt myself from my rant as I spot a small figure running up to the tipped over van and climbing onto it while the crowd cheer at their successful action. "Oh man." I quickly shut off my trucks engine and get out before I start jogging towards them in case in the crowds excitement, they attack Steven.

"Everyone, please!" I stop running as he pipes up over the crowds wailing, silencing them and getting their attention. I move over to a nearby alleyway and peek out of the entrance and around the corner so I can see. "The power might not be back on tonight. It might not even be back on for even a year!" He shouts out loud, giving everyone the blunt truth about the power.

The crowd starts get rowdy and are overall shocked and dismayed at the idea of that possibility. "But I know that you're all going to be okay because I know each and every one of you." He continues his little speech, getting the crowd to calm down again as he gives them a smile. "You're smart, you're tough, and you're resourceful. And you all care about each other more than you care about microwave dinners or video games or being able to see in the dark. I know it'll hurt your businesses, I know it'll hurt your lives. But are we really going to hurt each other?"

' _Damn dude, that's some deep stuff right there.'_ I think as I smile at his words. From the mood of the crowd, and how awesome I feel too, his words are having quite the effect.

"Of course not! We'll face the night together and we'll survive because we are the light of Beach City!" He shouts with renewed vigor. The crowd starts to talk amongst themselves and from what I hear, it's good. At least until the mayor gets out of his van and stands next to Steven.

"Yes! Thank you, Steven. I couldn't have said it better." He tries to act dignified but the others won't have it.

"Don't try to worm your way out of this!"

"He he, spunky old woman." I chuckle at the old woman's words from Fish Stew Pizza.

"It's okay! It's okay!" Steven manages to calm down the crowds rising anger. "Mayor Dewey was hiding things from you but he did it because he didn't want you to worry!" The crowd starts murmuring in agreement with the statement. _'I guess they understand why he apparently lied to them. Good.'_ "He was just sheltering you from the truth because he... He loves you."

I smile and lean against the outside of the walls, crossing my arms as I take note of my friends pause. _'And it looks like Steven, you understand why the others did the same.'_ As the crowd starts cheering the mayors name, Steven jumps off the van before running towards the temple, but changes direction once he sees me. As he stands in front of me, he doesn't say anything but from the look on his face, I know what he wants. "Let's go." I wave my hand towards my truck. "It's time you got your answers."

* * *

As soon as I park in front of the steps leading to the house, Steven immediately jumps out of my ride and bonds his way up the stairs. After turning off my truck, I follow the kid up the stairs to the top and we see the others inside. Garnet is sitting on the sofa with Amethyst lounging beside her and Pearl is working on her machine in front of the coffee table with the fireplace lit up. This time Pearls device doesn't have any blow dryers on it but I'm pretty sure the washing machines engine is in that. We walk up to them, making Pearl take note of us.

"Oh, hey, you two." She idly greets us before focusing back on her EMP device. "If I could just concentrate the—"

"Um… Do you guys wanna talk?" He nervously asks them.

"And why would we need to do that?"

"Oh Pearl." I murmur to myself as I rub my forehead at her bad acting, especially when it looks like she almost breaks her device. Actually she broke off one of its antennas.

"Hey, Steven. You still owe us a game of cards." Amethyst says to him. Looking to the table, I see a deck of cards in the middle of it with several cards strewn about.

"Yeah, get in on this." Garnet voices her want for playing cards as she picks up a hand of cards. "You too Marcus. We could use another player."

Before I can say anything, Steven cuts in. "N-no. I don't wanna play cards. I wanna talk about Peridot." He tells them, firmly set on it.

"Oh, well, yes. Everything is fi—"

"Pearl." I interrupt her. "It's time to stop. He's… better… than you guys think he is." I say as I place a hand on his shoulder. He looks up at me with a smile.

"Yeah, I know it's not fine. I know you just don't want me to be scared but just tell me the truth!" He demands of them, slightly raising his voice.

For a second, they look at each other, quietly contemplating what it is they should do. "Sometimes," I speak up, "Not knowing is even worse than knowing… no matter what it is about." I let out a sigh as I aim my head towards the ground. "I would know." And that's the truth. Through most of my life, I didn't know who or what I was and that absolutely killed me for the longest time. Even more so when I saw those monsters and the corrupted gems. Meeting The Crystal Gems and getting the info, I was at peace.

"Peridot is coming." Garnet finally admits out loud. She calmly sets her cards on the table. "And we don't know who or what she'll be coming with. She's a modern gem with modern gem technology that's bound to overpower us. Even with some modern gem tech on our side," She looks to me, "We're still at a disadvantage." From her words, Steven is no doubt shocked at the depressing but hopeless tone she has with her voice. "Steven, Marcus," I look up at her mention of our names. "The truth is… we're scared." With the truth revealed to us, they look down in sadness. For awhile, I knew how bad things seemed. Outnumbered, outmanned, outgunned, the whole situation seemed hopeless I get that, but to actual hear from some of the most powerful warriors I know, and my friends for that matter, that their scared… its depressing… and makes me worried too.

"We've been scared before, right?" Steven asks, bringing everyone out of their slump. "None of us know what's going to happen, but... that's okay. We can figure things out… together."

The Gems and I look at each other and take in the words this kid says to us. It's true, a lot of times we're always in the dark when we go into battle, whether it's a corrupted monster or Homeworld tech… or humans… we're always in the dark and surprised more times than I can count. To the Gems, they never thought to have ever met someone like me and I never thought to ever meet individuals like them. When Garnet and Amethyst formed Sugilite, they had no idea she would run ramp to the point she nearly killed me and Pearl. When I was walking home from the disastrous space mission Pearl tried to bring me and Steven on, I had no idea I would get kidnapped and nearly killed. The same could be said about the Kindergarten, Lion, fusing, we've always been in the dark and now is no different.

… Sort of. We know they're coming now and the best thing we can do now is be ready and prepare as much as possible. The thing is… despite being in the dark, we've always come out on top. We managed to break apart Sugilite, I escaped The Iron Kings, we defeated them at the Kindergarten, Lion's been a valuable member to our group, and the fusing has been a welcomed experience for both me and Steven.

We all silently nod in agreement at how things seem to be bleak for us. Suddenly the lights turn on.

"Ah!" The others say in slight elation at the power being back on. Now with the power finally being back on, I think its a good omen to have on our side.

Still, with the power back on, I still feel a little grim about the situation.

" _Si vis pacem, para bellum._ " I mutter another one of my favorite quotes.

"What?" Pearl asks in confusion, obviously not fluent in human latin.

" _Si vis pacem, para bellum._ " I repeat myself. I get up and head around the wall to where I used to keep my gear before moving to them to my house. I still have one other case I was going to transport… but now's a good time as any. "If you want peace…" I say as I round the corner and open the case. All the others hear when I go silent is the rustling sounds of Velcro and fabric being moved and the case closing.

I walk back out and their eyes widen. I have my jacket wrapped up in one arm, and a military issued bulletproof vest adorning my chest. It's black with several pockets fitted for carrying many magazines for me use. I've also taken out my Beretta's and equipped them in their holsters to the sides of my vest. Several grenades of both fragmentation and flashbang cover the front of my vest for quick access as well. I've also placed small metal plates in front of my vital organs to add extra protection without weighing me down as much.

To top off the look, I'm wearing a set of black polarized sunglasses with the addition that these ones are made of ballistic glass, further increasing their durability.

"If you want peace," I repeat the first verse as I grab my M4A1 Carbine, equipped with foregrip attachment, laser sight on the side, strobe light on the other side, 4x Red dot scope, fixed stock, an extended double taped magazine carrying 5.56mm hollow point rounds. I hold the gun in hand, aiming it to the ceiling with the safety on.

"Prepare for war."

 **Happy New Years everyone! Officially!**

 **Feels good to actually get this out to you all on the actual day of New Years. I was hoping to get this out at least a couple hours after midnight but I didn't get the chance. Aw well, it's still the same day so I hope it works for you all.**

 **While I was doing this chapter, I felt the need to chunk down some unnecessary moments so I could get this out to you guys for New Years day. Actually I only took out one scene and that was Marcus scolding the gems after they laid to Steven about cards the first time before he took off to the town to save Mayor Dewey's ass from getting completely getting destroyed by the towns people. It wasn't anything major, just some words spoken, the Gems standing firm with their decision and disappointed head shaking from Marcus before he left to go place all his weapons. Even so, hope you guys still like this.**

 **As usual, getting close to the midway point here folks. (At least it's a midway point for me.) We're getting close to some great episodes and I can't wait to take a crack at what I come up with for them. Jasper and Peridot's arrival to earth were a major stepping stone in the Steven Universe plot line and you know what, it's going to be a major one for Marcus as well. New enemies, new salvage, new tech, new opportunities.**

 **Man this is gonna be good.**

 **Hope the new year is gonna be a good one for you all, and as always, have fun reading.**


	38. 36 The Return (Part 1)

It's been a hectic couple of weeks for me to say the least. Most of my time has been used up by working on anything I could use to work to our advantage. I made sure all my gear on my vest was placed firmly on it and in no way would anything fall off anytime soon. I double checked my weapons placement every week to make sure they're there and accounted for. I also made a new addition to the back of my truck that I keep under my tarp since if the police were to spot it, they'd immediately move on me for it. Other than that, unless I want to start making my own landmines to place on the beach, which would be really really really stupid of me to since it's a public place and as much as I want to be prepared to fight our enemies, I do not want to risk any innocent people stepping on a landmine. _'There's too much of that crap happening already because of wars and skirmishes in the past.'_ Even so, I feel like I've got as much as I can do at this point so for now, I need to relax. The last couple of days have been spent being at ease in my home and waiting for the inevitable to happen. I make sure that I mentally prepare myself for the upcoming fight to happen.

Thing is, while I may seem capable when it comes to many fights that I take part in, one thing that I like to do before a huge event is going to happen is that I like to relax before it and soak up the information I have for it. While my body and the physical world are ready for what's to come, I take a few moments out of the day to do a recount of what my plans are, where they are going to take place, what I have at my disposal and where to get them. It's so I don't forget where anything is and I don't forget any little detail that could potentially save my life.

I am sitting on my couch with my legs crossed and hands resting on my knees, my breathing coming in calm breaths and steadying my mind because of it.

"Whoa!" I yelp as a loud rumbling noise shakes my entire home, throwing me from my thoughts and almost making me lose my balance from the couch. I almost fall off the couch but I quickly grab the back and the armrest to steady myself. After a few seconds of rumbling it stops. "What was that?" I question out loud about the activity. Before I can go outside, I quickly grab my M4 and head to the door. Just before I got outside, I see one of my windows in the front of my house is cracked. _'Good thing I had my droids strengthen my windows.'_ I smile at the thought before heading outside. As soon as I do, I look around for anything out of the ordinary. "Hmmm." I hum as I scan the horizon around me and at the sea. Houses in town have their windows broken but other than that, nothing is wrong. I look up, and that's where the problem is. A giant green hand is in the sky pointing at us. "Hell…" I flick the safety off and rack a round into the chamber. "It's about time."

* * *

"What's the situation?" I ask the others as I come from the Beach House after Warping in from my home.

"A ship has arrived in our atmosphere." Garnet gives me the sitrep.

"Peridot?" I take a guess at the arrival.

"We don't know. We can only guess yes." Pearl adds.

"Hmmm," I look through the scope of my rifle and while it's not sniper rifles standards of zoom, its still something. Besides, Garnet is holding the telescope like its nothing to her eye. "Other than its green, I see no other discernible marks that it's Peridot." I point out. So far since I've met her, I've only seen her deal with tech or items that have the color green hue to them. This is just a shot in the dark at best.

"Regardless, we still need to engage them. Are the light cannons ready?" Garnet asks me, to which I nod yes. While I was relaxing the last few days, I still did a check up on the cannons to make sure they were up to snuff and ready to fire. I still don't know what it takes to fire the thing since the others didn't bother to tell me what it was but besides that, both the cannons and the conveyor belt are ready for action.

"Guys!" We all look back to see Steven running up to us with his dad right behind him. "Did you see that thing in the sky?" He asks us.

"It's a ship. We have to assume it's Peridot." Pearl tells him.

"Lapis told us she'll be coming. With advanced weapons and reinforcements." Garnet reminds us of the message she sent.

' _Thanks… your great for that.'_ I think fondly of the blue gem so long ago. I hope she's not mixed up in this. I don't want to see her get hurt because of us. "Strange." I muse to myself as I look back to the ship. "The advanced weapons I get but to be honest, I was expecting a lot more troops." I say out loud. _'Is Homeworld that cocky they only send one ship?'_

"It's happening…" I hear Greg say.

"I wanna see." Steven says as he walks over to the telescope and peers through it. "Woah." He says in awe at the machine.

Garnet looks toward me with a determined expression. "Ready the light cannons."

With a nod, I pull out my phone and activate it. With a whir, the Quartizine Trio move out from under the deck at the beach house and Amethyst pushes out the fourth one they have onto the deck. Using a camera I built into them, I aim them straight to where the ship is using my phone. They told me the cannons fire a concentrated stream of energy towards the target so I don't have to compensate for wind or temperature variables. "Ready to fire." I notify them.

"Steven, light them up." Garnet signals to him.

"If every pork shop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."

"That's the signal to activate them?!" I ask the Gems incredulously. "What type of firing mechanism is that?"

"One no one would be able to figure out." Garnet answers.

"… Damn, that's good." I mutter as the cannons charge up. While it may seem a little… weird, to have that type of firing mechanism, or that type of voice activation, but when you think about it its something that not many people or Gems would be able to figure out because of how absurd and ridiculous it sounds. Not something that I'm privy to working with but damn would that work in some cases.

The cannons all fire their payload straight towards the ship. The blasts looks like bright version of Rose and the Quartizine Trio hold hands as they circle the fourth one. To our dismay, the ship hand reorients itself where instead of pointing, it shows it's palm to us and our attack hit it square on. Nothing shakes it as it moves back to pointing.

"No effect." Garnet says grimly at our failed attack.

"What now?" Greg asks.

"My turn." I speak up. With the laser light cannons ineffective, I move over slightly move the tarp on the back of my truck and reach in before pulling out a M72 LAW rocket launcher, an RPG, and a Javelin missile launcher. "Pearl, Garnet." I toss them the RPG and the LAW which they easily catch. "Arm up."

"You sure this'll work?" Garnet asks as she aims her RPG at the ship. She may not be privy to using conventional firearms but I made sure to at least show her the ins and outs of my explosive weaponry. Turns out she does like the explosions they bring out.

"No… but that's because the Laser Light Cannons failed." I reply and sprint over to the beach house. When I get inside, I warp myself to my house before climbing up the lighthouse to the top. Once I make it to the top, I pull out my phone and call Steven.

"Hello?" He answers.

"Put me on speaker." I tell him.

"Okay… go."

"But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try!" I yell into the phone, making sure everyone hears how determined I am on this. After prepping the rocket and setting it on the railing, I start locking onto the ship. "READY…!" I order my friends to do so. As I look down to the beach, I see Pearl getting into a crouched position and Garnet remains standing. "AIM…!" The lock-on signal turns green and tracks my target. "FIIIIRRRRREEE!" I yell out loud.

*PU—CHUUING*

The rocket leaves my Javelin, jumping out of the tube before its thrusters send the ordinance flying high into the air. Almost at the same time, Garnet and Pearl simultaneously fire their rockets as well. Unfortunately, while they only kick up the sand behind them, my rockets back blast blows out the windows on the lighthouse behind me, making me wince a bit but I still focus my attention on our attack. I spot three lines of smoke trails heading straight for the ship and like before it shows us the palm hull of its hand ship. While the RPG and LAW head straight for the palm, my Javelin missile however completely circumvents that part of the ship and comes in from the top. I watch the two missiles slam straight into the palm and they impact it with explosive force. So far the front has no residual damage from the attacks but my Javelin is still falling from up above. The ship isn't able to correct itself as my missile slams head first on top the top of the hand. "Yes." I mutter to myself and shut off my phone before heading back down to the others. When I jump down from the top of the cliff, I walk over to the telescope that Garnet is looking into. "Status?" I demand after I place my rocket in the back of my truck.

"Our shots had no effect but yours cracked the hull." Garnet answers.

"But?" I get the feeling it didn't do as much as I wanted.

"But that's it. It only splintered the hull and I don't see any other change in its descent."

"Damn." I curse under my breath, my fist tightening in frustration at the still failed attack.

"We'll have to take them head on." Garnet informs us since all our preemptive attacks failed. "The whole town might be in danger."

"I better make a call." Steven says as he pulls up his phone again. "Time for some… political favors." Looking over his shoulder, I raise a questionable eyebrow as I see him calling none other than the mayor.

"You have the mayor's number?" I ask confused.

"Yeah, I do. After I helped him out last time, we traded numbers so that way if he needs some inspirational speeches or needs to look good or I need some favors, we can call each other. Mayor Dewey!" He moves from explaining to me to talking with the mayor.

I shake my head and walk away from him. "I don't know if I should be worried about that or praise him for earning the guys favor." I mumble as I walk from the kid since he's so engrossed with talking with the political figure. "Hm?" I question as I spot both Pearl and Greg running to the temple. "What are they—?

"Marcus." Garnet plants a hand on my shoulder from behind. From the way she places it, and how she talks I get an uneasy feeling from her. "How come I have a feeling you're going to ask me something I won't particularly like." I reply.

"Steven's going to call for an evacuation of the town… and you know a lot of people are not going to stay and find out what happens next." She informs me… sadly. The tone is… steady and I detect something under it.

"What do you—" I begin to question but I'm interrupted as I see Greg and Pearl coming back from the temple. This time they both have a ton of stuff with them but what gets my attention is the cheeseburger backpack slung over her shoulder. _'That's Steven's. I know why Greg is going but…'_ It takes me a second but it clicks into my head. "Steven's… not…" I trail off, hoping she gets what I mean.

"Yes, and I want you to go with him." I turn back and look at her. "I know you don't want to. I get that. Not after all the preparation and planning you did to help prepare us for this… but you and I both know this isn't the most well-defended place on earth, now is it." She says truthfully.

I stare at her for a few tense seconds, still in slight shock that she's asking me of this, but in the end I sigh. "I know." I look towards the ground.

"That's why we can't have Steven here. It would be too dangerous for him to be here and we still don't know exactly who we'll be up against." She says as she looks toward the ship. "And that's where you come in." She says with a bit more confidence as she looks back to me.

We stare into each other's eyes, neither of us saying anything for a few seconds but the both of us have some contemplating to do, me more so. I have a choice: Stay here and help out my friends in the fight, or go with Steven to fight another day should they fail.

There are advantages to staying and fighting. We could throw everything we have at them right now and try to stop them cold before they could get far on the planet, but that means we'd be working on information that is given in the moment; information that would be near useless for us to use or take advantage of.

If we go, our forces would be split off. I'd lose some friends… but I'd be able protect Steven. I can prepare him. I can learn from the enemy. I'd be able to use the planet to my advantage and build up my arsenal a lot more than what I have now.

There are pros and cons to both but I can only choose one.

As I spot Mayor Dewey coming into town in his van, I let out a breath of air.

"What do you need?"

* * *

" _Get Steven out of here. Protect him and come up with a better plan should we fail here."_

Those were Garnet's words to me just before Steven noticed his backpack and questioned why they had it and were loading it up in the van. Right now, I'm riding behind Greg's van in a convoy of vehicles heading out of Beach City. As I drive, my steering wheel gets new finger grooves in it from my constant tight gripping of the wheel. Tears are also threatening to fall from my eyes at the idea of leaving the others but its what they want and even though I really hate it, they still know Homeworld better than I and if there's a higher chance we will all lose if we go up against them right now, then logically speaking we would need to use some of our forces to gauge their strength and weaknesses and use the rest to capitalize on that information.

It may be the logical approach but damn do I feel like hell.

"Uhhhh…" I groan as I rub my hand on my face in frustration. _'Please be alright girls. I really don't want to lose anyone else, or have to start planning another rebellion.'_ I think as my hand goes over my eyes before I remove it. "Son of a—!" I yell as the van in front of me swerves. I spot a familiar pink bubble get launched out of the van while Greg hits the brakes. I swerve off the side of the road and head into the ditch lower ground area on the side of the road. "Shit!" I curse as a boulder comes into view in front of me. I hit the brakes and swerve to the right but it's too late.

*CRASH*

"Cah!" I yell as the front left side of my truck slams into the rock, making me jerk my head forward and impact my head on the dashboard. For a few moments of only the sounds of my engine rumbling, I weakly grab my keys before turning off my engine. "Ow." I groan as I sit back up and press a hand to my head. "Ahhhh!" I hiss from the impact on my head as wound area is tender from the hit. "Mmmmm… Oh! Steven!" I yell, suddenly remembering my friend in the pink bubble. I jump out of my truck, not bothering to close the door as I see Steven talking to his dad.

"I have to go back. I have to!" I hear him say as I crouch next to them. "They don't have my shield, do you understand?" He says sadly to his dad with tears threatening to break through his eyes.

Greg looks at him for a moment, his own tears threatening to flow forth as well before he smiles. "Yeah, okay. Just… be careful, or I'm gonna run fresh out of family." He says to his son before looking to me. "Take care of him… will you?"

I return the smile and stand up before extending my hand to the both of them. "I wouldn't want it any other way." They both smile and take my hands, allowing me to pull them both up.

"Thanks Marcus." Steven thanks me for my support before turning back to his father. "Stay with everyone and keep them safe. We'll figure out some way to get back to Beach City." I open my mouth to say something but a familiar pink paw places itself on top of Steven's head before the animal connected to it lets out a low growl. "Oh, this'll work!"

"Where did you come from?" I question at the sudden appearance of the pink lion but he simply sniffs at my direction. Steven gets on Lions back but looks confused when he notices than I'm not making a move to get on him.

"What's wrong?" He questions.

"You got your ride…" I begin to say as I back up towards my truck, "I got mine!" I yell back as I make it to the front of my truck and quickly inspect the damage. "After Lapis and Greg totaled my truck…"

"Hey! It wasn't my fault I was thrown into the air!"

"…Pearl's repairs made this thing more durable than before." I inform them as I'm satisfied with the inspection and see that nothing will inhibit its ability to drive. The only problem is my left head and signal light are destroyed but I'm not worried about being pulled over right now. "Besides!" I climb onto the back as everyone from the convoy start coming down to see if they can help and I start unhooking the tarp. "Ain't no way I'm leaving… this behind!" I grunt out loudly as I tear the tarp away.

Everyone gasps in awe as I reveal to them the object I've spent days refurbishing and remodeling to my specifications. The two Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns I obtained from The Iron Kings were both using the same direction of feed system, both a strip of bullets from the left from a box, but I changed one of them to feed from the right so I can do the second thing I want. Using several strips and pieces of metal, I connected both guns together so they'll be side-by-side and facing and firing at the same target as well. Not only that, but I basically also turned my truck into a technical by using a rivet gun and bolting a large metal stand to the back of it and welding the gun to the stand. Now I can turn the gun in any number of directions and open fire on anyone I wish. The weapons would be too heavy for me to use bare-handed and with the incendiary rounds I have equipped as ammo for these beasts, I needed the stand to make sure this things aim won't go all over the place. I begin placing the boxes of ammo onto the sides of the guns and feed the strips throw the gun.

"What is that?!" Greg asks in surprise at the massive weapon I am currently arming.

"Two Browning M2 .50 cal machine guns equipped with incendiary rounds and bolted onto the back of my truck for stability." I answer as I finish loading the guns.

"W-what are you going to do with that?" Greg asks hesitantly.

"What does it look like?!"

*Cha-Chink*

I pull the bolt handles back, loading in the first rounds of my weapon. "Defending our home!" I yell and jump off before getting into the driver seat and turning my truck on. It revs up to life without any difficulty. After checking my rearview to make sure everyone is out of the way and I'm clear, I kick it into reverse aim my ride towards Beach City. "Let's go Steven!" I call out to the kid.

He nods with a determined expression on his face before waving to everyone. "See you later everyone!" He says to them all before Lion and I take off, not bothering to hear what everyone else has to say. After a few seconds of driving alongside Steven and Lion, I see my friend pull out his phone. "Hey, Connie, it's Steven. Just... seeing what you were up to. Don't know if you knew, but there's some crazy stuff going on with a giant space hand and we all might die, so, uh, I guess call me back when you get this and talk to you soon! Uh, bye!" Once Steven hangs up the phone, Lion opens a portal that the two of them jump through.

"Seriously." I grumble at their shortcut before turning onto the road. My vehicle gains a little air as it goes onto the road and slams onto the paved roadway. Once I reorient myself, I kick my truck into high gear and speed towards the Temple.

Right where the battle is going to take place. For everyone.

 **Hope you don't mind the split chapters here. I have no idea how many words exactly the conclusion to "The Return" will have and that's why I decided to split the chapter up at this point. I'd say this one has a pretty good chunk of words about it. I'm also pretty sure I'll be bouncing ideas around and possibly thinking hard on how to flesh out or connect some scenes. So I don't want to accidentally backlog this chapter just because I'm scratching my head trying to connect one scene. Hope you guys don't mind.**

 **Hopefully the second part won't take long. One reason for that possibility is because I'm sort of binge watching episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh. Normally I'm not really up to snuff with the series and I don't collect cards anymore but when your cleaning out a cabinet filled with crap since a dozen years ago and find a box filled with over a hundred cards that you collected when you were like five or eight, you kind of get a bit of nostalgia feel to it and feel the need to reminisce you know?**

 **Still, don't worry I won't be watching every single season and every single episode of the entire series, only the ones that interest me or remind me of my younger days like the original or GX.**

 **Also another thing I'm gonna do is give you guys a small basic recap of my character since sometimes of my description in chapters flows over your guys head. And to be honest… I'm the same. Occasionally when I read a story, I'll skip over a few lines here and there just so I can advance things along and it would just so happen that I potentially miss important facts of information.**

 **Marcus is a Gem-human hybrid with two Jade gems on his shoulders, having a gem mother and a human father. His father wasn't a good guy and in his depression of losing his wife to make Marcus, hurt him many times. Marcus left and traveled before meeting up with the Crystal Gems and joining their ranks. He has powers of extremely fast shadow movement speed, kinetic strikes that he uses to overpower his unarmed attacks or create shockwaves, and he has the power to regenerate any wound or injury on his body but the result afterward leaves him in a dormant vulnerable state for a full 24 plus hours. Marcus's mother, Jade, was a prototype soldier made by Homeworld but when she failed, they threw her away. Only Homeworld knows exactly how it was that made Jade and why she has two gems without the aid of fusing so both he and the Crystal Gems are in the dark about that subject.**

 **Well, with this chapter wrapped up, time to get started on the next part because I'm sure a lot of you are anxious to find out what happens next.**

 **As always, have a great day and have fun reading.**


	39. 37 The Return (Part 2)

"Fire!" Garnet orders Opal to open fire on the descending ship. Without missing a beat, Opal lets loose her flurry of arrows towards the ship. They fly through the air and impact the ship on multiple areas on the front side of it. Even though the ship doesn't bother to switch to it defense stance like with the first attacks from both the cannons and rocket strikes, the arrows have no effect on the ship.

Steven dismounts Lion and pats the beast. "Stay here! If something happens, Dad'll need a new son!" He tells the animal, not really taking into account of just how cryptic that statement is.

Garnet and Opal watch as the ship continues down to the planet's surface without a hitch. Garnet sighs sadly at their futile attack. "At least Steven and Marcus are safe…" She mutters somewhat comfortingly to both herself and Opal at their friend's absence.

"Hey guys!" Unfortunately for her, they didn't listen.

"Steven!" Garnet cries out in surprise at seeing the kids presence there with them. The surprise of seeing Steven at the beach causes Opal to fluctuate and separate into Pearl and Amethyst. The recoil forces them to the ground like it does with all fusion at this point.

"How are you here?! You can't be here! You have to leave now!" Pearl frantically tells the young boy because it's too dangerous for him to be here on the potential battlefield.

"But—" Steven begins to reply but a new sound accompanies the slowly landing ship except it comes from behind them. Everyone turns around to see Marcus's truck drift around the side of the temple before speeding straight to where the others are. Before he gets too close, he hits the breaks and turns his vehicle to the side, drifting the rest of the way to them before coming to a stop a few feet behind them. Without a word, he slings his M4 onto his back and climbs out of the driver seat before climbing onto the back and manning is turret.

"GET DOWN!"

They take the initiative and cover Steven with their bodies. Marcus aims his gun straight towards the enemy ship and pulls the triggers.

Loud rapid thumping sounds permeate the air as the twin line of rounds impact against the hull of the ship similar to Opals arrow strike from earlier. Unlike the energy blasts of most of their attacks against the ship, the solid projectiles of the rockets and bullets of are enough to fracture the surface of the ship and leave nasty dents in it. Unfortunately, that's about all the attacks are capable of as they only barely damage the ship and not cause any significant damage to it.

* * *

"Damn. Didn't work." I was hoping that the close proximity of the ship would allow my bullets to impact it as opposed to the energy waves used by most of our arsenal but that didn't work either. _'Should have used armor-piercing.'_

"You guys came back!" Amethyst says with a smile at seeing us bacl.

"What are you doing?! Get out of here!" Pearl yells for us to go we won't have it.

"Sorry Pearl but we are not leaving our friends to fight our battles for us!" I yell defiantly to her. _'I was a fool to think of that alternative was the best choice for me. Yes, it was logical but to hell with the idea of losing my friends. I love Steven to death but I feel the same for them as well!'_

"Yeah!" Steven yells out as well and agrees with me.

"But you—"

"It's too late!" Garnet interrupts Pearl as the ships descent gets even closer. "Just stay behind us!" Garnet tells us all.

With a massive thud, the ship finally lands on the water with its palm facing upwards and the fingers on the beach. The force of the ship coming in from the atmosphere and hitting the ground so quickly kicks up a massive cloud of dust and sprinkles water droplets on everyone but a massive blast of air and force lightly slides everyone back to me, making them in line with me and my truck. _'Good, now I won't have to worry about friendly fire.'_ With that thought in my head, the ship remains still and nothing can be heard besides everyone's tense breathing, the waves crashing, and the ship activating something. Soon I spot a ball of some kind rolling up the palm to the index finger and stops there before it dissipates, revealing three people. The finger drops onto the beach and I get somewhat a better glimpse of the occupants. Two of them I feel are familiar but the tallest one is a complete unknown and leaves me uneasy. Despite that I keep the sights on my turret trained on the unknown individuals.

"That's them, alright." A familiar figure comes into clear view on the tip of the finger. _'Peridot. Obviously.'_ "They're the ones who keep breaking my machines." _'Not all of them Peridot.'_ I think with a smirk.

The tall unknown figure walks forward and steps past Peridot. "This is it?" She asks in an unimpressed attitude.

"Jasper! They keep interfering with my work!" Peridot complains at this Jasper.

She steps forward and lets out a sigh for some reason. "Looks like another waste of my time..."

"Mmmm." I growl under my breath and move my fingers over the triggers ready to unleash hell.

"Hey, get over here!" My eyes widen as Jasper grabs the third person from behind her and pulls her forward, revealing it to be Lapis. _'No…'_ "Grrrr." I grit my teeth as I reluctantly move my fingers off the triggers. _'So much for no friendly fire._ '

"Ngh!" Lapis roughly jerks her arm out of Jaspers grip and turns to us. She gasps as she sees both Steven and I here.

"Lapis!" I hear Steven say to my right, surprised to see her here. I'm glad to see her nonetheless, but I do wish it was under better circumstances.

"This is their base?" Jasper asks Lapis.

"Yes…" She answers but she looks away in disappointment as she does so.

"You need to leave immediately!" Garnet commands them to do.

"Yeah, step off!"

"This is not a Gem-controlled planet!" Amethyst and Pearl pitch in their opinions as well.

Peridot and Jasper don't follow through with what the others say but instead all three of them fall onto the beach with a few thuds. "And neither of you saw Rose Quartz? Oh, what a shame. I'd hoped to meet her. I was looking forward to beating her into the ground!" Jasper comments with a sickening sneer smile on her face.

"Euegh…"

I move my fingers back into position at the threat and Steven's uneasy moan.

"But this is all that's left of her army? Some lost, defective Pearl, a puny overcooked runt, and this shameless display?" She insults each of my Gem friends before glancing over Steven. "What is that?"

The Crystal Gems bare their weapons in preparation after she spots Steven. "It calls itself the Steven." Peridot informs her.

"He's just a human!" Lapis speaks up. "He isn't a threat at all! He's not one of them!" She tries to dissuade Jasper from finding a sort of interest in the kid.

"I know what a human is." Jasper sneers at Lapis before looking to me now. "And what about that one?"

*Cha-Chink*

The Homeworld Gems look in surprise as I pull the bolt handles back on my guns, for an intimidation factor and to make sure I don't have a jam. "Marcus." I growl out and train my sights directly on her. Seeing my action, Lapis takes a step away from Jasper.

"Tsk! Whatever. You don't need me for this. Just blast them with the ship." Jasper says as she begins walking back to the ship. _'The ship?!'_ My eyes widen.

"Ugh, fi—!"

"LAPIS MOVE!" I yell loudly and aim my gun several feet to the ground in front of them before pulling the triggers.

Once the first couple of rounds leave the gun, Lapis heeds my warning and jumps off to the side. My line of fire moves up along the ground towards Peridot and Jasper, who turns around in surprise at the loud sounds. The sand and dust kick up quickly as my bullets impact the ground and head straight for my targets. My rounds create a smokescreen effect on Jasper and Peridot but I don't stop there and keep the triggers depressed as I continuously open fire on them. My friends back up and move away from the point of where I'm shooting at. It takes a few seconds of continuous fire but I finally run out of ammo as the barrels on my guns run blistering red hot. As much as I want to keep firing, it's good I'm forced to stop, otherwise the barrels may very well get damaged and melt from the heat.

Once I stop firing, the sound of the dust settling on their side starts to settle and I don't see anything at first.

"HA!" A loud cry is heard and a stomp impacts the ground. The cloud of dust and sand is destroyed as Jasper stomps on the ground, the shockwave sending the cloud in all directions. She stands back up to her full height with an annoyed look on her face as scuff and black marks adorn most of her body.

Peridot pokes her head out from behind Jasper with a look of surprise. "What was that?!" She asks in surprise.

"Fa!" Jasper scoffs and stretches her neck side-to-side. "That… was nothing." Cracks can be heard from the movement as she gives me a snarky smile. "That all you got?" She challenges me.

Everyone looks between the two of us as we stare each other down. With a cross look on my face, I reach down and pick up a RPG-7 rocket launcher and aim at them. "No." I say in a low voice before I take aim at their feet and fire. Like plenty of rockets before, the back blast hits the open air behind me and I place my foot behind me to brace for the launch as the shot flies through the air. Steven and the others move behind my truck to shield themselves and Lapis moves further away before covering herself in sphere of water. Peridot quickly moves but Jasper remains rooted to her spot defiantly as the rocket hits.

In a loud explosion, a bright ball of fire engulfs the area where she was standing, blowing a gust of wind outwards in all directions. The others mush themselves lower to the ground for protection but I don't bother moving. My ballistic glasses protect my eyes from debris and allow me to look directly at the inferno ball as the wind whips my hair back and makes the pins on my grenades on my vest 'tink' as they hit the metal part of their ordinance. Soon, the blast wave dissipates and we are left with a small plume of smoke that starts to go as well.

All is silent as everyone else wait's to see how effective my attack was.

*Fwoosh*

"Fuck!" I curse loudly and jump off the back of my truck as a giant rock comes hurtling toward me. Just as I hit the ground, a loud tearing noise of metal can be heard right where I was standing. As I look back, my eyes widen in surprise as the boulder sheered my gun turret right off. "Son of a— I just made that."

"Alright enough of this!" My friends and I look towards the ship and to our surprise they both are unscathed. Peridot stands in front of Jasper with a shimmering lime green transparent triangle shield in front of her. One of her hands fingers has opened up and extended to make the shield in the first place. It slowly cracks before shattering all together, making her recoil in a small grunt of pain. Jasper sneers at me for my actions. "Blast them already." Jasper growls towards Peridot. The green gem tries to get her controls set back up after my shattering of her shield temporarily disabled her tech. "NOW!" She yells at the green gem for taking so long with activating their ships main cannon.

Peridot flinches at the outburst and stares at her commanding officer. The next moment her controls go back online and she activates the ship. "Fine." She grumbles from being ordered so harshly by her.

The ship lifts up with the index finger taking aim in our direction and when Peridot does some movements on the screen she created in front of her, the ship starts charging power. "Steven, Marcus! Get out of here!" Garnet orders the two of us to do.

"No!" Steven yells out, answering for the both of us.

"I won't let you risk your lives!" Garnet tells us as she looks towards us. While she and Steven are arguing I try to figure out some sort of plan against this thing.

' _Don't know how much power it'll give off but standing here we may be able to brace ourselves against the attack! Then again leaving is another option but running by foot or in my truck would leave us vulnerable to the attack. How do we—"_

"But this is my home! And you're all my family!" Steven yells passionately, interrupting my thoughts. I look at him to notice his gem is glowing but before I can question it the cannon starts increasing power, pushing more air against us and becoming that much brighter, forcing me to bring my hands up to block the light. "I-I'm a Crystal Gem too!" I manage to hear Steven over the roaring of the ships blast as he moves in front of us.

"Steven! Ahh!" I yell out his name and go to grab him but a sudden bright blast of light forces me back and to cover my eyes again with my arms.

It takes a few tense seconds but I manage to feel the force of whatever blast dissipate away from us so I can see again. Bringing my arms down, my eyes hurt from the flash but they adjust soon enough, allowing me to see a surprising sight in front of everyone.

Steven stands in front of us with his gem uncovered and his arms outstretched in front of him with his shield. Unlike the previous times when he's pulled out his shield, this one is by far the most powerful and biggest I've seen ever. The shield is the same design as the ones before but this one spans as tall as the ship itself and stands firm in front of us. "Steven…" I breathe in awe at the sheer power he exhibited in stopping the ships blast in its tracks. The shield begins to fold in on itself before disappearing all together, making Steven collapse from the exertion. "Steven!" I call out his name in worry as he falls. I move forward and kneel next to him. "You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah I am." He manages to tell me as he catches his breath.

"Dude," He looks up at me, "Nice… job." I compliment him on his action just a few moments ago.

"Thanks." He gives me a tired smile and I help get to his feet.

"You!" We look up at Jasper's outburst. "You have the power of Rose Quartz!" She demands of him.

"Oh crap." I mumble at her demanding tone for Steven. _'This can't be good.'_

"Now do you believe I needed an escort?" Peridot asks of Jasper matter-of-factly about the situation.

"Fire a barrage! Widespread!" Jasper orders. Peridot complies and inputs some more commands on her screen before activating it. I quickly grab Steven and push us forward as a beam fires out of the finger of the ship and goes along the ground behind us. At first there's nothing but it's a delayed effect as the line on the ground explodes outward, sending the Gems flying in all directions and sprinkling Steven and I with sand.

"Ble." I spit out some sand before standing up and looking around.

"Rose, why do you look like that? Why are you so weak?" Jasper questions Steven as she starts to make her way to us. I pull out my rifle and aim it at her while getting in front of my friend.

"Stay back!" I order her to and she does but only to smirk at me.

"What? You think you can stop me?"

"Don't hurt him!" Lapis demands of Jasper as she walks up to her.

"You knew about this!" Jasper says to Lapis.

"It wasn't relevant to the mission!" She makes up the excuse but the angry Gem won't have it.

"Forget about the mission!"

"What!?" Peridot asks in surprise.

"Yellow Diamond needs to see this… thing." Jasper menacingly says as she walks up to us.

*Bang*

I fire one shot at her, stopping her in her tracks. We both stare each other down until she looks at the spot where the bullet hit.

The projectile was almost completely flattened against her skin. It simply falls to the ground with a light thud.

She smirks.

"Crap." I groan at the ineffective shot and she advances.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*

I fire more rounds in quick succession in a futile attempt to stop her but she just keeps moving forward. _'Son of a—! She's not stopping! I need to_ —' Before I can come up with another solution, she gets close enough that she dashes forward and kicks me in the stomach, sending me flying back. "Marcus!" Steven cries out as I'm sent flying over him. I roll on the sand a few times before coming to a stop on my stomach and groaning next to Pearl and Amethyst.

"Now come here you." I look up to see my gun in front of me and Jasper reaching down to grab Steven.

"Uh…" Steven says uneasily.

Before I can get up and attack her, Garnet pulls herself out of the sand behind Steven and charges at Jasper with an angry look on her face. "Oh good." Jasper smiles as she sees Garnet charging towards her past Steven. Jasper pulls out her Gem weapon, a hammer-like helmet that encompasses her head and she head butts Garnet's gauntlet strike. This creates a powerful draft that pushes back Garnet, Steven, and Jasper.

"Steven, run!" Garnet orders the kid to do as she recovers from the attack and charges yet again.

"Priming Gem Destabilizer." Jasper says as she pulls out some kind of electrical wand and charges Garnet.

' _Gem Destabi—!'_ I look on in horror as the two of them get close. "Garnet wait!" I try to warn her as I get onto one knee but it's too late. Jasper thrusts the wand straight into Garnets chest, shocking her for a second before bright yellow lines appear all over her body and continue to grow as pieces of her body start to detach. As she falls backward, her visor falls off and both Steven and I look on in horror as we see the saddened expression on her face. She blows up in a cloud of dust. The others gasp around me but I pay no attention as images flash through my mind.

* * *

" _Steven, its's okay. I'm gonna be just f—"_

 _*Poof*_

* * *

The monsters I remember fighting, attacking… killing.

But… Pearl's stuck… most of all. I remember the sword all to well going through her chest.

But that was an accident.

This… Bitch! Attacked and almost destroyed my friend.

My… Family!

"GARNNNEEEEETTTT! RAAAAAHHHHH!" I scream as loud as I can and run full sprint towards Jasper, picking up and firing my rifle as I go. The others call out to me but I focus on my target. The rounds fly out faster than I run and Jasper is forced to bring her arms up to defend from the onslaught of rounds hitting close to her face. Unlike the ones from before, they were centered on her chest and stomach region. Now I'm aiming entirely at her chest and head because I want to gauge her eyes out.

I move past Steven and when my gun runs out of ammo, I toss it straight at her but continue to run. The butt of my rifle softly smacks her in her head, making her grunt a little. When she recovers from the apparently useless hit, she is surprised to see me jumping straight at her with my right arm brought back in a punch. "Haaaaa!" I yell as I try to punch her in the face but she brings her arms up in defense. The force of my punch sends her sliding back a little. I press the attack and move forward to attack some more. Instead of going for a punch, when she brings her arm up to punch me, I go low and tackle her. The action surprises her and doesn't give her the chance to hit me as it puts her off-balance so I force her to the ground. As we land, I come up and start landing as many punches as I can straight to her face. I get a few good shots in but she quickly brings her arms up and defends against my rage induced onslaught. When I reel back for another punch, she swings her arms outwards in an attempt to swipe me against my head but I lean back, making her miss me. Unfortunately, she expected that because she reels back and hits me with her helmet. The force of it hits me hard in my stomach, knocking air out of me long enough for her push me off of her. I stumble back from the hits and she jumps onto her feet and rushes me. Before I can recover, she rears her head back and brings her gem weapon down to hit me. I barely have enough time to cross my arms over in front of me to defend myself from her attack. It hurts like hell from the force and weight of her attack and it forces me to my knee but I remain firm, at least until she brings her leg up and kicks me away from her and Steven.

* * *

"Oh no. Marcus!" Steven cries out as his friend is sent flying back again, this time further away and past the other Gems.

"I was there, you know." He looks back to Jasper as she walks toward him and starts talking. "At the first war for this garbage planet. I fought against your armies. I respected your tactics. But this... ?" She questions as she picks the helpless kid by his shirt. "This is sick!"

"Unhand him!" Pearl yells as both she and Amethyst charge towards Jasper in hopes of preventing her from harming Steven.

"I don't get what you're planning, Rose. But look! Your base is taken." Jasper waves to the statue he and the rest of his family of Crystal Gems have been living for nearly all their lives, some more than others. "Your armies are ruined!" She waves to the rapidly closing duo of Gems charging towards her. "You have failed!" She tells him with a smile before taking off her helmet weapon and bringing her head back.

A flash of darkness moves past Pearl and Amethyst, heading straight for Jasper as she brings her head down."RAH!"

"Uh!" Jasper yells as a force comes out of nowhere and punches her straight in the side of the face, forcing her to let go of Steven and away from him. She is sent sailing through the air for a moment before she lands roughly on her back and slides for a few feet before coming to a halt. She groans as she gets up into a crouch and looks at the person with hatred that actually sent her flying with. Marcus stands tall in front of his hybrid friend, breathing heavily at the sudden rush of adrenaline from seeing the person he cares about so much in danger and looks at her with anger.

"STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!" He yells defiantly to the heavens and at her. In a flourish, he pulls out both his signature katana sword, griping them tightly to the point his knuckles turn white as Pearl and Amethyst run up to him as well.

Unfortunately, his intended opponent recognizes the weapons all too well. "Wha… No… N-no! It can't be! It can't be you!" Jasper cries out hysterically at the summoned weapons.

"Huh?" Marcus says confused as Jasper looks at him with widened eyes.

"You can't be her! They told me you died! They told me you failed and you were shattered!" She yells at him, before closing her eyes and clenching her fists. They clench and unclench harshly, evident of her anger for what it is that she's feeling. "So why… ARE YOU HERE?! WITH THEM?!" She yells loudly, demanding answers.

Marcus looks at her confused, unsure of exactly what's causing her outburst. He looks to his friends for answers but they don't have any. Amethyst, Pearl and Lapis are just as confused as him. When he looks behind him to his brother, Steven shrugs in confusion as well but as soon as Marcus lays his hands on Steven Gem, it clicks. _'Wait… she doesn't want me… she freaked out when Steven pulled out his shield… now that I've got my swords out… mom?'_ Marcus thinks and turns back to his enemies.

His eyes widen. "Look out!" He quickly pushes his arms outwards to his sides and throws Pearl and Amethyst away from him. "GRrrrrrr Aaaaahhhh!" He grunts in pain as a thousand volts of electricity go through his entire body and propels to just behind his friends. The Crystal Gems and Lapis stare in horror as he convulses on the sand behind Steven, sparks shooting off his body before looking to see who attacked. Peridot stands a little ways behind Jasper with her right limb enhancer glove transformed into a sort of shock blaster. Her fingers moved back to attach to the sides of her glove before aiming towards and feeding electricity to the central transparent ball jutting out of the middle of her glove. She's crouched with her other arm supporting her transformed one, a teeth gritted firm expression on her face.

"Ha!" The others turn back to Jasper who looks pleased at seeing Marcus take a hit like that. "Well, that's one problem dealt with. Time for the rest." She says and stalks up menacingly to the others.

* * *

"Pah!"

"Ooh!"

My head throbs painfully so and my muscles are stiff and feel like they're on fire but I manage to make out the sounds of others, possibly fighting. Slowly, I lean my head upwards and try to see what's going on but my vision is blurry. Achingly, I twist my body onto my stomach and rub my eyes to try and do away with the blurry vision.

"Rah!"

"Cah!"

"Ah!"

"…"

' _Wait, what happened?'_ The sounds of fighting and combat is completely silenced all together. I move into a crouch and turn back to see what's going on. _'What the hell is—!... No…'_ My eyes widen and my mouth parts open as I stare at the scene before me.

My friends lay on the ground not moving with Jasper standing over them. She stares at them for a second before training her sights on me.

"…"

"…"

We stare at each other for a tense few seconds before she starts walking towards me. _'Damnit.'_ I pull out one of my pistols in my left hand and fire at her. I don't have any special rounds equipped onto my Berettas so my rounds simply ricochet off her. They don't stop her in the least bit as she stalks towards me. _'Fuck.'_ I pull out a frag grenade in my right hand and after pulling the pin, I wait. _'One Mississippi… two Mississippi… three…'_ I chuck the grenade at her and as it lands at her feet, she looks down at it before stepping on it, crushing it into the sand and walking forward.

*Boom*

In a small muffled explosion, the grenade goes off, splashing sand and dirt all over her she remains undeterred. "Uhhh." I groan at the failed attack before grabbing a flashbang. I fire a couple more times before tossing the grenade several feet in front of her. Its dangerously close to me but I wrap my arms over my eyes and cover my ears as tight as I can.

A muffled pop manages to run through my hands and allows me to hear the grenade going off. After waiting a second, I lower my arms and prepare to attack her dazed form. "Guh!" I choke out as a large hand grips my throat and almost crushes my larynx in one go. I drop my gun and try to tear the arm off from choking me but it's too strong. Despite being choked, my attacker is still Jasper with her helmet weapon equipped. _'Of course. That god damned visor of hers.'_

"Was that it?" She asks, bringing me close to her face. "Is that everything you could possibly throw at me?"

"Guh… ha." I try to speak but her grip prevents it from happening.

"After everything that you were made to be, after everything that you strove to be, this is it?" She says in a disappointing tone. She brings her weapon down on me and hits me right in the face, jerking my head back roughly, making my head throb and shattering my glasses easily despite them being made of ballistic materials. With that, she roughly tosses me away from her.

"Puh!... Ahh." I groan as I land roughly on my back and take in deep breaths. Once I gain my breathing back, I look up to see Jasper looking down on me with a sad expression.

"Pathetic." She tells me before she starts walking away from me.

' _Pathetic?... Pathetic!'_ I move into a crouch. I grit my teeth in anger and my fists. "Don't you walk away from me! Rah!" I yell at her and charge her from behind. When I get close, I bring my right fist back and go to attack her. I move in closer and closer until…

*SMACK!*

In reverbating noise, she catches my fist in her hand, halting my powered kinetic strike in its place, making a wave of force shoot out in all directions around us. I look at her with surprise etched on my face at the sheer ease she just stopped my attack cold. My fearful expression meets her neutral look.

She smirks.

*Snap*

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" I scream in pain as she twists my wrist sharply in the wrong direction, snapping the joint. She lets go of my hand and I collapse onto my knee, cradling my broken, limp and useless hand. Anger wells up inside me and I go for another punch using my left hand. She grabs my wrist before pulling back, out stretching my arm and bringing her other arm back.

*Snap*

"Aaarrrghhh! Damnit!" I yell in even more pain as my forearm is snapped in half, the bone sticking out of the skin. I collapse onto my knees as I look in horror at my broken limbs. I look up to see her bringing her leg up.

*SNAP!*

"Uhhh! Uhhha! Aaah!" I groan through gritted teeth as my knee cap is shattered, forcing me to fall onto my back as I writhe in agony from my injuries.

Jasper looks down at my beaten bloody form before she sighs. "I can't believe I used to look up to you." She turns back and begins walking away from me. "Get them onto the ship. We need to report this to Yellow Diamond now." Jasper orders Peridot to.

"What about him?" She asks while nodding her head towards me.

She looks back to me and I look at her with pure fury welling up inside me. Right now she just incapacitated me like it was nothing and now she's not bothering to finish the job or knock me out. The anger I feel is on par and being fueled by the extreme amounts of pain I feel throughout my body. "Don't bother." She scoffs at me before walking off, her summoned helmet weapon disappearing. Peridot uses some sort of levitation beam to from her gloves to lift all my friends away and towards the ship.

I look at Lapis to see a look of horror on her face. Seeing me beaten and destroyed like this is exactly what she didn't want to see happen. When our eyes meet, she looks away. _'Lapis…'_ I groan as even the slightest movement sends pain flaring through me. My anger deepens even more and I grit my teeth as Jasper casually picks up Garnets gems and continues walking. _'No… No. I can't let this happen. I can't let them leave. I can't let them take the closest thing I have to a family! But what the hell can I do?'_ I glance down and wince when I see my bare bone peeking out of my flesh. _'I can't heal… I'll be knocked out for a day… They'll be long gone before then. Oh god this hurts.'_ I try to stand but I end up collapsing again, the pain flaring more harshly. _'God damnit Marcus! You can't stop now after all of this! Not after all this work. You can't let your family be taken so easily! Fucking FIGHT damnit! Fi—'_

*Thump-Thump*

' _Wha-what?'_ Everything goes deaf as I can hear my heart throb loudly.

*Thump-Thump*

All the pain starts to fade and everything goes…

…

… Quiet.

* * *

*Ca-Crack*

Jasper stops walking at the sickening cracking sound she hears. Everyone looks back to see Marcus's body convulse and contorts gruesomely. He grunts and groans loudly that they can hear him and the spasms plaguing him before his body does what surprises them all. His left arm with the broken forearm thrusts into the air before it straightens out, the bone slipping back under the skin before his nails start to elongate and slams palm first into sand. His broken wrist on his right hand snaps back into place as well before holding himself up with both hands on the ground. He groans loudly as his broken leg jerks back horribly, the sounds of bones crunching before it reforms and fixes itself back into the proper place.

But it doesn't stop there.

On his hands and knees, beads of sweat travel down his entire body as his clothes suddenly feel too tight for him. Right before their very eyes, his chest starts to expand outwards, not from the breathing heavily but his body's mass grows. The military vest he is wearing strains to remain intact and compensate for the expanding body it's trying to protect but its futile.

The stitching, straps and Velcro pop and tear right off from each other, the vest falling to the ground haphazardly, revealing the much larger and more broadened body Marcus now possesses. Those that are watch as everything goes silent, and he freezes… before slamming his fists into the ground and growling… like an animal.

"Grrrraaaaa!" Marcus has his eyes closed as his body starts transforming, but unlike the glowing transformations and shapshiftings that all Gems are known for, this is more… real. Black hair starts growing all over his body in single strands at first but soon patches of the stuff grow all over. He groans as his muscles all over start growing as well, his arms and chest stretching the fabric of his shirt before it tears off as well. His pants stretch and fall away as well before leaving his shoes as the only piece of clothing left on and even that doesn't last long. A sudden shift in his feet tears off the fabric of his shoes and socks, revealing a surprising sight.

His feet begin to lengthen and grow claws, resembling that of wolves. "Raaaaaaa!" He lets out a beastly growl as his head starts shifting. His jaw and the frontal part of his head push out roughly until it too resembles that of a wolves jaw and snout. His body convulses and jerks from the shifting changes but still he manages to get onto his knees. The hands start growing bigger as well as the nails as they thicken out and become deadly sharp 4-inch long claws on each of his fingers.

By this point, black as the night hair has already grown on nearly every point of his body, taking away the once human appearance he had, into the sort of… wolf monster-like appearance he has now. Finally what ends this brutal and rough transformation of his, is these black misshaped crystals that grow out from under the fur. The bigger and grotesque looking ones appear prominently on his back but his chest and face remain unscathed.

As the last of whatever transformation has gone on with the human-gem- hybrid, now what kneels is a sort of a monster like creature that is the stuff of nightmares, especially with the black wispy smoke that comes off the crystals on its back. Very slowly and carefully, it stands on its feet until it finally stands to its full height, making its height on par with that of Jasper.

A cold quiet silence falls upon everyone as they witness the horrific transformation that has never before been seen by Gem kind except for only one form of instance. Lapis visibly flinches as the monster opens its eyes; blood red eyes replacing the usual milky white part stares at the Gems in front of it. As soon as its eyes land on Jasper does the monster bare its teeth and snarl at her.

"Oh… now this is going to be good." She smiles at the new form of enemy in front of her.

"RAAAAAAAWWWRR!" The monster lets out a roar of defiance and slowly starts stalking towards Jasper, baring its claws away from it.

"Finally, a challenge." She sneers and forms her helmet. "Let's go then!" She challenges her opponent and dashes forward. Seeing his challenge answered, the creature sprints forward as well to meet her head on. As soon as the two of them get close, they both bring their heads back and head butt each other. Despite having a powerful weapon designed to use the head to attack, her opponent doesn't flinch from the impact and takes the blow, holding her back before it swings its right claw at her. "Uh!" Jasper grunts as the claw cuts her stomach, forcing her to slide back from the hit. She looks down at the cut before looking up to see her opponent smirk and charge her. The creature swings its claws from left to right repeatedly, trying to eviscerate its opponent but Jasper either deflects the attacks with her weapon or dodges it all together but the strength and speed of the attacks forces her to backpedal away from the fight.

As soon as it goes for another slash, she deflects it with her helmet and follows up with a punch to its face, forcing it to step back from the dazed hit. As it takes a step back to regain its senses, it brings both its arms up to defend against another attack from Jaspers helmet. She hits it multiple times, forcing it to slide back with each consecutive hit. She presses her new advantage by following up with punches as well. Now it's the monster that's forced to go on its defense and backpedal from her onslaught. Like before, the creature uses its claws to deflect her helmet strikes but dodges away from her punches. Soon, Jasper adds even more variety to her attacks by pulling out the Gem Destabilizer and swipes at her opponent. The creature regards the weapon so it manages to dodge the weapon fairly well. As Jasper tries to hit it at its head, the creature ducks down to dodge before coming back up with a swipe of its claws. Jasper dodges the attacks as well before the two go back and forth in hopes of landing another hit on the other.

Unfortunately, Jasper manages to find a break in its defenses. When it goes to slice her with its right claws, she blocks it with her left arm and brings her helmet down on the limb. The attack doesn't break it but the force exhibited pushes the body towards the right, leaving it open to attack. "Perfect." Jasper mutters as she brings her right arm holding the Gem Destabilizer straight towards its head, eager to destroy her old comrade's odd body shape choices, just like Rose.

"Ragh!" Before she can thrust the tip of her destabilizer straight to its head and destabilize the body like she did with that first Gems, her opponent jerks its head back and opens its maw wide before clamping them down, catching the weapon in its teeth.

A eerie form of silence falls over the two combatants as Jasper tries to push the destabilizer closer to its body while the creature uses its jaw to keep the weapon from directly touching against it. However with the electricity arcing off the weapon and the weapon still touching its intended target, the familiar yellow lines that appeared and traveled along Garnets body just before she was poofed start racing along the creatures face as well. It flinches and winces as the lines travel along its face but at a much slower pace. Since the weapon was designed to destroy a Gems physical manifested body, it's having a hard time trying to destroy a body made of human flesh, no matter how deformed it may have changed. The two are at a stalemate, trying to overpower the other until one of the lines snakes its way to one of the monsters red eye. The organ quickly turns completely glowing yellow.

*SNAP!*

With fierce force powered by pain and blind anger, the creatures menacing maw clamps down with the force of a crocodiles bite and breaks the weapon.

"What?!" Jasper asks in surprise as she stares in surprise at the broken weapon in her hand. As she looks up, her eyes widen as the monster she's been fighting appears in front of her with its right arm raised up. Before she can react, the creature swipes at her head roughly with enough force to send her flying away from it. She doesn't poof from the hit and instead goes tumbling through the air, hitting the ground a couple times before she slides along the sand in a heap and remains still.

Her attacker lets out deep breaths of air, exhaustion starting to wane on it after the intense fighting it just went through. Its opponent however remains still on the ground and doesn't move. It starts walking forward, intent to end its enemy's life.

*Zzzzzzzttttt*

"Raaaaaaawwwww!" The monster roars in pain as another stream of electricity is sent through its body, making it convulse right where at stands. After a few second of all its nerves flaring up at once, the pain dissipates just as quickly, leaving it to breathe deeply as it stands still. "Rrrrr." It growls lowly and menacingly turns its head to the side, looking to see who dares attack it.

Peridot stands several feet away to its right with her glove transformed to its shock blaster mod. She looks on in surprise as her attack only looks like it just annoyed the creature.

The monster turns to her and bares its teeth and claws.

"Oh clod." Peridot mutters at her failed attack. The monster starts walking towards her. "Stay back!" She demands of the thing and fires another shock blast at it, which only stops it for a second before it continues walking to her but with slightly increased speed. "Oh clod oh clod oh clod!" She frantically says as she backs up away from it and changes her blaster but it continues to gain ground. The shock blaster transforms out and replaces itself to a rapid fire blaster instead and she makes use of it. "Stay back! Stay back!" She continues to yell to the monster as it gradually gains more and more speed, the blaster shots ricocheting or disappearing all together as they impact the body. It's futile for Peridot to keep shooting at it but after seeing how menacing it is and how it was able to go on par with Jasper, she's not thinking straight. Soon, it comes close enough that it stands straight up in front of her and raises it's right arm upwards toward its left. Peridot looks on in fear as the limb comes crashing down and backhands her. Since she doesn't have nearly as much muscle mass as Jasper does, she's thrown away quite easily but not as brutally since it was done without the use of its claws. When Peridot is left on the ground in a heap, groaning, the monster that devastated her and Jasper looks behind where Peridot was last standing and stares at the cowering Gem.

Lapis Lazuli looks on in pure fear as the monster that was once someone she truly cared about trains its eyes on her. She flinches as she stares into the red eyes leading to oblivion and falls to the ground. Instead of walking on two legs, the monster gets down on all fours and stalks menacingly towards her. "Marcus… no…" She cries out as the beast continues moving, not at all deterred by the mention of that name. "Please no… don't… Don't you… don't you remember me?" She tries desperately to talk it down but the creature doesn't listen, it just continues moving closer and closer with saliva dripping down its maw. "I don't… I don't… You can't…" Lapis's words start to become mismatched and she closes her eyes as it starts crawling over her, its limbs being placed on each side of her, trapping her.

The monster lets out a low growl as it's jaw opens, all of its razor-sharp and serrated teeth free to be seen by all with a hot mist flowing from its mouth, making Lapis cower even more from the heat. She wraps her arms around herself, prepared for this… thing to crush her… and possibly end her.

It leans back, like a panther ready to pounce on its prey, and ready's itself to completely destroy this Gem in front of it.

It pushes forth.

"HEY!"

*Smack*

"Arwo!" The creature yelps as something hard smashes against the left side of its head, the rock used having broken apart from the force of hitting against the side of the head. It's dazed for a second but quickly turns to the direction of the object and snarls loudly before opening its jaw, catching another rock in between its teeth before promptly crushing it into dust. With the new voice and no longer expecting to be destroyed, Lapis slowly opens her eyes and looks at what's happening.

Jasper stands a bit away from the others, holding a rock large enough to fit in her hand and tosses it a few times in the air before catching it again. Her summoned weapon is still on her head but the visor and hammer part of her weapon have deep nasty claw marks along them. She looks at the monster with a scowl before gripping the rock tightly in her right and pulling her back like a baseball player would. "HA!" Jasper yells out and throws the rock at near supersonic speed, a blast of air kicks outwards from the point the rock leaves her hand. To the untrained eye, it looks like it disappears but the monster swipes its left arm from right to left, breaking the rock in mid-flight before it can hit. The monster gets up off of Lapis and turns towards its first opponent. "We're not done yet!" Jasper challenges it and gets into a combat ready stance. Accepting the challenge, the monster steps onto two legs and bares its claws outwards away from it.

"Grrrrrrr… RAAAAAAAAAAWWWWRRRRR!" The monster lets out an inhumanly loud roar of anger before it peters off into a loud growl.

"Come on then! Let's finish this!" Jasper yells at it, antagonizing the beast further.

Both combatants ready themselves for one last fight against one another. The both of them had a small lapse in their fighting with each other but now…

Now they intend to finish this.

The monster crouches low to the ground, ready to sprint forward and meet its enemy head on with claws ready to strike.

Jasper's fists tighten considerably, anger flowing through at how much this thing was able to almost beat her, as well as play with her subordinates.

The two tighten their stances… and charge.

*BANG*

A shot rings out.

Both of them stop at the sudden noise.

An uncomfortable silence falls onto the two of them at who shot.

A trail of blood flows down the monsters chest.

It looks down at a small hole that formed on its rapidly reddening fur. It brings a clawed hand up and places it on the wound before taking it away, seeing the red transfer to its furred clawed hand. It looks up with widened surprised eyes at Jasper at the turn of events, who is surprised as well.

*BANG*BANG*

Two more shots in quick succession rip through the monsters chest, blood flying out its front and staining the sand in a stream in front of it. As it's body settles from the shots, its legs give out, falling to its knees, before collapsing forward onto its front, revealing the person who fired.

Peridot sits in a crouched position with one knee on the ground, her visor cracked from the attack she sustained along with a bruise on the side of her face. Both hands clutch the Colt Anaconda she took from the Homeworld Warp pad the first time she came to earth. After the brief description Marcus gave her about human firearms when she first talked to him at the Prime Kindergarten, and from seeing how he operated his own firearms, she used the gun on this monster that nearly killed her and everyone else.

Although archaic in comparison to Homeworld technology, the hard metal rounds rip through the enemy with ease, making it fall to the ground and lie still. Very carefully, she stands up and makes her way to the body past Lapis as Jasper does the same, not taking her guns sights off the creature in case it attacks.

As the two of them get close, nothing happens, not even when Jasper kicks the body. "What… what was that… thing?" Peridot gasps out, out of breath from the engagement and near death experience most of them nearly suffered.

Jasper looks at the body for a second before looking at Peridot. The two of them share a glance but before Jasper can answer, the body suddenly glows. She remains rooted to her spot but Peridot yelps and backs up in case anything else happens.

The body that was a monster starts to shift until it turns back to the person it was before, Marcus. All his clothes are back on except for his military vest and the bullet holes he suffered have repaired as well.

Jasper looks down at the Gem in front of her with pity. "That thing… is a mistake." She says out loud, answering Peridot's question and not taking her eyes off it. "She was the best… she was something I wanted to be… but now…" Marcus groans as his body curls up. "She's nothing." He weakly places he hands on the ground and tries to get up. "She's broken."

He shakingly looks up at Jasper in front of him.

"She's… corrupted."

With that last statement, she thrusts her head downwards, impacting her Gem weapon right on Marcus's face, knocking him out.

 **Did I go overboard? I have no idea if I did so I'll let you guys tell how well or horrible I did. If some of you were expecting more enemies, new characters or a fight in the city… sorry to disappoint.**

 **As I've stated in the past, I don't like the idea of adding new Gems that could be contradicted by the shows reveal of their own versions of the Gems. I know this is my story and I can make things to make everything more interesting but it kind of irks me, and I imagine some of you, if some of the stuff I add isn't in line with the show I'm basing this story along. This is a fanfiction story for a reason.**

 **If you were expecting a fight in the city, sorry about that too. Marcus was paranoid that an army was going to attack Beach City so he prepared for that, not barely a squad sized force instead. He certainly wasn't expecting someone as tough as Jasper or resourceful as Peridot in being his opponents.**

 **At first I was unsure about splitting the chapters up but since the previous one was over 4,000 words, and this one is way over 7k, then I imagine it would be tense or difficult for some to be able to read over 10,000 words in one sitting. At least that's what I think anyway. It usually takes me around two to three hours to completely read through 8,000 words alone.**

 **In any case, I hope this chapter was good for you all as it was to me. Some of you were expecting and really wanted to see him get his ass-kicked and some of you were just anticipating the fight in general. I hope I satisfied both parties with how things turned out. As you read, it seems Marcus doesn't know everything that there is to know about his mom and that nearly costed him almost everything now he has. Now all I have to do is get started on the next episode and hopefully, take us on from there without too much trouble.**

 **Thank you all for your patience and as always, have fun reading.**


	40. 38 Jail break (Part 1)

Singing.

That's the first thing I hear. In the vastness of my unconscious mind, the first thing that comes to my mind is someone singing.

Very slowly, my eyes open to see a green ceiling. Very carefully I sit up and look forward to see a wall that resembles the ceiling. _'What happened?'_ I ask the question in my head but I close my eyes and grasp my head as I suddenly get a painful headache.

* * *

" _RAAAAWWWWRRR!"_

* * *

My eyes shoot open as everything that happened on the beach. The fighting, Garnets destruction, the Crystal Gems unconscious bodies, Jasper overpowering me, how easily she snapped my limbs like twigs and then… that thing.

I remember the sickening transformation I went through. It wasn't pleasant, not in the least bit. The pain of my bones snapping back into place, them shifting and reforming to accommodate that thing, the individual strands of hair that pushed through my skin, the crystals and digging out of my back and my skull… oh god my skull.

My headache throbs more painfully as I recall the bones in my face growing.

God it was so painful going through that hell and when it was done, my instincts just flared up and… took over.

"What… the fuck?" I curse at whatever type of thing that was.

"Finally, your awake." I quickly look to the side to see Jasper standing there but in front of something yellow. "It's been too long."

"Jasper." I scoff at her name and get onto one knee. "Where am I? What the hell's going on?" I demand of her.

"We're going home, Jade." She says with a smile, much to my surprise. "Maybe when we get back to Homeworld with that traitorous Rose Quartz, you can answer some questions as to why you're here when you marked as shattered." She calmly explains to me as she goes onto one knee in front of this barrier thing that's separating the two of us.

"Questions I—" I start to say but stop. "Listen, Jasper, I'm not who you say you think I am." She looks confused at my words but I press on. "What I am… I'm my mom's son. These Gems I have are hers, they are Jades… but I'm not Jade herself." I calmly explain to her. Her face remains impassive as I try to explain things to her. "My mother sacrificed herself to give me life. She's gone… and I'm here."

She stares at me for a few seconds in silence, the only sound being the hum of the barrier in front of us. "You really don't remember… do you?"

"Remember what?" Now it's my turn to act confused.

"Everything." She answers incredulously. "Don't you remember the fighting? All the battles and missions you were a part of? All those rogue Gems you shattered?!"

"… What did you say?" I ask her at the last thing she asked but the… smile she gives me as she asks looks scary.

"You were so much when you were made! You were going to be the best of the best and then…!" She trails off, her moment of happiness changed to a more somber look.

"What do you—?"

"Do remember anything?" She asks.

Flashes of the memories my mom showed me in her room go through my head but nothing as concrete as what she's asking of me.

"How many?" I ask her how many Gems' my mom shattered. I imagine your kill count isn't something that you want your son to know about you.

"You lost count after a hundred."

"WHAT?!" I yell in surprise.

"Yeah, when Rose Quartz started her little rebellion you were sent in all the time to eliminate as many members of her army before they could mount a proper offensive against us." She casually informs me. I look away in disbelief at the news. _'Over a hundred kills… but… how…'_ "I don't know what happened later that made you suddenly disappeared but after that, Rose's army grew stronger and we were getting so many reports of one Gem destroying so much and shattering so many of our own soldiers." She looks away and smirks with closed eyes. "At first I could think of only one Gem who could do that kind of damage… but I didn't want to believe it." She turns to me with anger in her eyes. "So I'll ask again… why did you help those traitorous scum?!" She asks with increasing hostility towards me.

I stare at her with disbelief. I'm trying to come to terms with my moms… actions but… "Look… I don't… I mean I…" I take a moment to collect myself and steady my breathing. "Over a hundred?"

"Way more… probably double that when you betrayed us." She sneers at the last comment but says it nonetheless.

"A hundred… Gems shattered… just… like that I…" My voice starts say things that don't make sense to me really. My mom seemed so… sweet when she was talking to me but I know its war but…

"I still remember how you operated. You were so powerful and fast against our enemies. I remember how easy it was that you shattered gems, especially with how brutal you took them out!" She says with glee and a smile starting to form on her face, "Even when you were trying to be quiet a few times, the look on those rogue Gems faces when you stuck your swords right into the their Gems was beautifully done!"

' _No… that can't be! I don't even have that many kills. Both human and Gem!'_

"Do you still have your collection of Gem shards you took from the ones you—"

"STOOOOP!" I scream.

Jaspers happy outlook turns confused as I curl up against the wall and grip my head with my hands.

"Just… just stop… please I…" My voice starts to break at the news.

Jasper stares at me for a few seconds at my odd behavior but the small gasps of whimpering makes her sigh. She stands up, "We're on our way to Homeworld. We'll figure out what's going on with you from there." With that she turns to leave, but not before giving me one last look of pity and stalking off.

"M…mom… what… what did you… do to me?" I cry out as I start rocking back and forth, memories of what I did at the beach coming back to haunt me… and what I did before I met the Gems.

* * *

Steven runs through the hallways of the ship, frantically trying to find out where his friends are. After freeing that Ruby Gem from the cell and the depressing talk with Lapis, he left to find any other clues or cells that are keeping the rest of his friends prisoner. He's not sure exactly what's going on but considering how mean and angry Jasper and Peridot were to him and his family, he knows for a fact that he doesn't want anything to do with them and wants to keep the people he cares about safe.

"Alright, come on. Where are you guys?" Steven mutters to himself after going through another empty hallway. After Ruby left when he was talking to Lapis and how one-sided the conversation was with her, he's now on his own, alone on an enemy ship. The hallways don't have any special indicators or pieces about them that makes them stand out compared to the others pieces of the ship so he's more than a little worried that he might be going in a circle. However as he makes it along another curvature hallway, he spots another set of glowing yellow barrier cells. "More of them! Maybe the others are here!" With that idea set in his head, especially since the previous few times he came across some cells that had at least some Gems in them, he lightly sprints forward quietly, making sure his footsteps don't attract too much attention. He passes by a particular cell and almost completely moves past it but some slight movement catches his attention. He backpedals and takes a better look at what or who's inside it. "Marcus! I found you! Don't worry about the shield. We can pass right through it. See!" Steven casually explains and sticks his arm through the barrier, which gives way momentarily to allow a small gap appear in the shield before he takes his arm out. "Come on! We have to find the others." He says and takes off down the hallway, expecting his brother to follow after him. When he realizes no one is behind him, he attentively walks back to the cell and peers in to see Marcus hasn't moved at all. "Marcus… you alright?"

"…" At first, Marcus just sits there in the cell with his face in his arms and legs curled up against him. "… No. I'm not alright Steven." He answers in a low tone.

"Wha-what's wrong? Are you hurt?" Steven asks worriedly since this doesn't like him at all.

"I'm not hurt, man. At least… not… physically." He continues to say in his sad low tone.

"Then what's wro—"

"Steven," Marcus looks up at the kid. Steven's eyes widen in slight surprise at seeing the disheveled look he's got. "Jasper she… she told me things…and I found out about some stuff… things about my mother that I—… that she… didn't tell me." He answers as he places his chin on his arms.

Steven stares at him for a second before moving to sitting down. "Well, what happened?" He asks curiously.

"… Steven… she told me how many Gems my mom… how many she… shattered. So many Gems Steven." He momentarily hesitates on his explanation but says it nonetheless. Steven stares at him, surprised at how jarring the news is and how much it's affecting his brother. "And not only that," he adds, "But something else happened. I don't know how, why or what but… I just don't know." He curls up even more. "A form that… that left me so…" He lets out a sigh. "I'm scared Steven." His hands crawl up his head and run through his hair until staying there, gripping his head. "I thought I knew everything about my mom… but even the answers she gave me weren't everything I knew and the way how Jasper described her… how she acted and what she does sounds so bad… and so similar to what I've done!" He says the last part with a slightly raised tone and his voice turning into partial hysteria. "I always thought how I lived was just me being how I was but the idea of a lot of it being because of my mom… especially those corrupted monsters 'I' shattered… it's hard to comprehend it Steven." He takes a moment to reign in his breathing because of his rant and curls into his arms again. "I'm so scared about what else I'll find out."

After Marcus's long winded explanation about what's got him so messed up after they woke up on the ship, the two of them fall into an eerie silence; the only sound accompanying them is gentle occasional creaking of the ship and the hum of the barrier between the two of them.

"That… is a scary thought. I don't know everything about my mom. If things can be as bad as… you say they are… with your mom, then I don't know how I'll feel if I found out something like that… about my mom."

Marcus tightens his hold on himself, tears threatening to break through his shut eyes.

"But I do know one thing that's true, no matter what." Steven says in a hopefully tone.

"… What's that?" Marcus asks after a moment's hesitation.

"You're not your mom."

"…" His slightly shaking body freezes at the words his brother says to him. "Wha… what?" He asks, not looking up.

"I don't know about your mom... even I don't know about my mom," Steven says as he looks to the side sadly. He then turns back to the depressed prisoner with slightly more conviction. "But even though we have our moms gem, that doesn't mean we are them! The Gems keep saying that I'm not my mom no matter what I do and the same goes for you. Whether your mom was good or not, you're not her and you'll never be her… Just like how I'll never be like my mom either." He adds the last part in a sad tone.

Marcus doesn't say anything. His body is still as he tries to process the words that the young kid has said to him.

Steven looks sadly at his brother and reaches a hand forward towards the barrier before suddenly pulling it back.

Metallic footsteps can be heard coming from down the hallway he came from. "Oh no." Steven whispers and quickly gets to his feet. "Listen I have to go! Remember you can get out at anytime!" He loudly whispers to the prisoner before taking off down the hallway away from the footsteps.

Soon what comes into view is a bipedal green robonoid who's height is on par with that of the average human. It's body isn't all in one piece. The head is circular like that of the robonoids the Crystal Gems and Peridot are familiar with but has two black holes for eyes and two wings jutting out the top back of the head. It's chest and the rest of the body all have the same design of what Peridot looks like but are all the same green color as the robonoids with divided floating legs like them too. The chest is its own piece, being suspended in air with the head floating above it, the joints of the arms and forearms floating away from the chest but are still connected by an invisible force, and the legs are the same as style as well.

It doesn't last long because as soon as it passes a cell does a hand thrust outwards and grab its head before pulling the whole thing into the cell and smashing its head against the wall.

* * *

" _Alright you asshole… enough moping around. Find the others. Get to the cockpit and turn this thing around.'_ I think as I quickly make my way down the corridor. Thanks to Steven's speech, he was able to get me out of my funk after my defeat. While the info I got about my mom, and my whole… transformation-messed-up-ness, was a bit much to take in, I know I'm not her even though I have her Gems, I am my own person with my own faults I need to own up to. At the very least, I can mope about this stuff later when we're not being taken prisoner by a hostile faction to their planet several hundred miles, light-years? I don't know. Away from our home planet and into unknown territory.

Thing is, after that whole ordeal and promptly getting shot to hell by Peridot, I don't feel drained or tired or anything. I feel down because of the info but other than that my physical health seems to have improved. Overall I feel more badass and awesome now for reasons I have no idea , right now I'm focusing more on getting the hell out of here and getting my family out too rather than focusing on how good I somewhat feel.

As I pass by a window, I take a moment to admire the scenery out the window. "Woooooaaaahh." I say in awe at the view. Right now I am staring at a picture that some people only dream about seeing with their very own eyes: Planet Earth. Not some video or picture of the big blue marble but I am actually staring from space at the giant with my own POV of the things beauty. It's a bit different when you can actually see it with your own eyes rather than a movie adaptation or from pictures. "I wonder if I can see a satellite." I say to myself as I press my face against the window in an attempt to make out any of the human constructs floating about. After a few moments of looking, I smile as I spot one. "There you are. Awesome." I comment at actually seeing the thing. However my smile turns into a frown as I notice the satellite and planet in comparison are getting slightly smaller. "Okay enough gawking. Time to get out of here." I scold myself for the stop and get going. Interestingly after a minute or so of constant light quiet jogging, this place does seem massive but I haven't seen any stairs, elevators or anything that may come off as access to another floor. "Dang it. Where am I going?" I question under my breath as I continue to make my way down the same looking corridors. Seriously I haven't found a single directory, a map or anything of that nature that can give me any insight as to where I am. Like for instance I'm coming up on a dead-end hallway with a cell at the end of it. Now if I had a map I could probably plan my route better instead of coming to another cell that has a blue— "Lapis!" I yell the Gems name as I immediately recognize who it is.

She flinches at the new voice and stares in surprise at seeing me in front of her. "… Marcus?" She squints to see me and I nod.

"Yeah it's me." I answer as I slide on my knees to the front of the barrier in front of her cell. "Listen, Steven and I are planning to bust out of here and we can get you out too. Let me just…" I begin to reach forward.

"He already explained that. I told him no."

"…Oh." I reply to her explanation a little confused. _'If she already knew, then why is she still here?'_ I begin to question in my head as I drop my arm. "So why are you—"

"Because I'm not stupid Marcus. If we fight back then our punishment from Homeworld will be that much harsher." She doesn't bother looking up to explain to me her reasons and her voice is slightly muffled but I can still hear her. "Besides… I'm not looking to be shattered anytime soon."

"Lapis, look, I know your scared of what Homeworld is capable of bbut—"

"I'M NOT SCARED OF THEM! I'M SCARD OF YOU!" To my absolute surprise, she screams at me with tears in her eyes.

"…"

* * *

To say it hurts would be an understatement.

The memory of what he almost did to the person he cares about rears itself to the forefront of Marcus's mind and it hurts. It hurts a lot to him that he almost did something truly horrible. He casts his eyes downwards and slumps forward

"I'm sorry I led them to you but—"

"You think I'm angry about that?" He interrupts her in a low voice, not even looking up.

Lapis's tears stop in confusion at his question. "We-well, yes. That's the only thing I can think of that I did to make you angry with—"

"You think… I'm so angry with you that I… I almost…" He has trouble finishing his words as the memory is still fresh in his mind.

She looks on in confusion at him. _'If he didn't want to… attack me… then why…?'_ She thinks but her eyes widen as she sees his own tears beginning to drop.

"Lapis…" His voice barely cracks but it's when he looks up that she's surprised. "I could NEVER hurt you." He states firmly. "Remember that story I told you?" She nods slowly. "Friends… don't come to me often. You… are one that I really don't want to lose. I just…" He looks down again. "I'm… I'm really sorry Lapis." He apologizes to her tearfully.

' _Marcus…'_ Seeing him so sad like this confuses her, but also makes her feel sad for the human in front of her as well. In the short time that she remembers that monsters face that was mere inches away from completely tearing her apart, the fact that it was someone she cared about made her both angry and sad at the idea of something she did that made him angry… but seeing him broken like this, so hurt and sad… its confusing. "If you didn't mean to… then why did you?" She asks in hopes to clarify why he was seconds away from attacking her.

"I… I-I don't know why I… why I did it in the first place." He says as he places his hands on his head. "That… thing was something I never saw or felt before and it was soooo… powerful… and scary." His hair comes a little disheveled as he runs his fingers through it more. "I honestly don't know what that was and I'm really sorry I almost—…" He stops himself from saying and trails off. After seeing the humans saddened demeanor about the whole thing, and the fact that he seems honestly scared about the whole thing, Lapis can't help but feel sorry for him and how awful he genuinely feels. She goes to say something but the sound of footsteps coming from down the hall silences her and snaps Marcus up from his slump. "Shit! Someone's coming." He whispers as he jumps to his feet. "I need to get out of her." He quickly starts making his way back down to a side passage and away from the sound of the footsteps. "I WILL come back for you!" He loudly whispers and points to Lapis just before he takes off down the hallway.

Lapis looks sadly at the retreating form of Marcus before looking down and curling up again.

* * *

My determined demeanor from before kind of takes a hit from that conversation.

It's one thing to lose friends to someone else… but it's an entirely different matter when it's YOU that makes you lose them.

I honestly don't know what that monster was… but I need to be careful, like really careful from here on out because if that… thing comes out again and tries to hurt my friends, then well, I'll probably never forgive myself. Probably do more than just beat myself over it, probably literally do it.

Even so, right now I'm sad I left Lapis but if whoever was patrolling down the hallway sees that she's gone, then the alarms could be raised and it would make our escape that much more difficult. So far I don't see increased security or anything that suggests an alarm is going off so thankfully it seems that they haven't noticed Steven and I escaped. "Speaking of who, where is that kid?" I question to myself as I wonder where he took off. After I took out that bipedal robonoid, I went down the same direction of the hallway that Steven went down but it seems we went in separate directions because I haven't seen high nor hair of him. _'Man, I hope he's alright. But since there isn't any announcements about people escaping means that he hasn't been made. Best thing to do is keep it that wa—'_ "Whoa!"

"Agg!"

Unfortunately because of my thoughts and the sharp corner I took on the next turn, I ran into someone and the two of us came tumbling down. After a quick yelp from both of us, we lay on the ground groaning from the rough impact on each other before we both sit up and take stock of each other. The person I ran into is another Gem but this one is all red and has a ruby gem on her hand. We stare at each other for a few awkward seconds before the two of us quickly pull out our weapons. She uses her other hand to take out a sort of red dagger looking knife and swipes it at my throat while I swing both my arms in a scissor formation towards her neck. We both freeze as we simultaneously feel the sharpness of our blades on each other's throats. I feel her dagger poised to stab and slice at my jugular vein and my swords are in a scissor formation right at her neck as well.

No one does anything as the two of us can easily end each other with one quick movement from either of us. "Friend… or foe?" I ask.

"Grrr…" She groans in slight anger, probably angry at getting placed in a precarious position like I am but soon calms down. "Friend to who?" She clarifies.

"Do you hate Homeworld?" I ask.

"Do you?"

"With a passion." I answer her question to my question.

After a few seconds when I answer, she starts to relax a little but still keeps the knife to my throat. "Yeah, I do to."

After a few more moments of silence, I sigh. "Alright then, guess that's good enough for me." I slowly take away my swords from her and she does the same to me after I did it first. We put away our weapons and stand up. "If you hate Homeworld, why are you working on their ship?" I ask.

"I wasn't working on this ship! They captured me and—!" Her eyes go wide and she grabs her head in surprise. "Oh no. SAPPHIRE!" She yells loudly, making me freak out and look all over.

"CHU-Shut the hell up!" I quietly scream at her as I force her to side and out of the middle crossway of the hallway. "Are you TRYING to alert the whole ship to our location?!" I scold her quietly.

"I don't care about that! I gotta find her. I gotta find Sapphire!" She exclaims and goes out into the hallway but I quickly pull her back and kneel in front of her.

"But I do and if you go screaming out to everyone on this ship then they'll know we escaped and sound the alarms!" I quietly say to her in firm tone the implications of her yelling out loud. She tense and grits her teeth at my words. Real quickly I poke my head out into the other hallway to see if anyone heard her. At the far end of the hallway I see a couple more of those bipedal robonoids pass by and continue on with their patrol. _'Good, they didn't hear.'_ I lean back to Ruby to see that she's angrily pacing back and forth. "Alright, here's the plan." I say, getting her to stop and pay attention. "My friends are also on this ship too as prisoners so as long as you keep quiet and help me find them, I'll help you find Sapphire. No matter what, alright?" I propose.

"You promise?" She demands angrily. _'Whoever this Sapphire she must be really important to warrant trying to run off like that. Or it could be her own brashness but still.'_

"On my life." I tell her, deathly serious. "Help my friends, and I'll help you. Deal?" I extend my hand for her to shake.

She looks down at my hand warily for a second and I get the feeling she's not going to go for it but grips my hand nonetheless and shakes. "Deal." She says firmly and nearly crushes my hand but I smile anyway.

"Good." We release and I stand up before looking down both hallways. "Alright well it looks like we still haven't been so let's try to keep it that way."

"Hm, let's move." She nods and takes off down the hallway that either of us haven't been with me trailing right behind her.

"Right behind you." I say as we make our way through the ship. As an afterthought, I clench the hand she shook a few times to get the kinks out because she almost crushed it. _'Ow, damn. She trying to break my hand. Only other time someone tried to crush my hand like that was Garnet.'_ With that thought in my head, I grit my teeth in anger and clench my fists as I remember what Jasper did. _'… Hope she's alright.'_ With anger and determination fueling me again, I kick up the speed a little so I'm moving alongside Ruby.

 **Apologies if some scenes don't pan out right, some don't connect right, rushed or there's some misspelling or word errors here and there but since college is just right around the corner, I've been trying to get my sleep schedule back in order and god does it suck. I hate it and its been making my head all loopy and I'm worried I'm gonna screw some things up with my chapters. Since college will be starting soon, don't forget that the release dates for my chapters will be taking a hit as well. For those of you who are guests, expect the next chapter releases during college time to be something along the average of 4 or 7 days. Obviously there's going to be some exceptions for specific chapters and depending on their length but hopefully you understand. I'll be dealing with the same psychology teacher I did last semester so I'll be a bit tense when it comes to those tests and all but hopefully things will be alright.**

 **Also I have to say to some of you that review many of my chapters, those of you that also try to review every single one of my chapters, its fine if you miss some. I know how my life is going and I get out my chapters when I am able but I don't really need or rely on every single review some of you feel obligated to give me. For example, people like you Coldblue, I'm not gonna be disappointed because you or anyone else miss writing a review for me and giving me feedback when I make a new chapter. Write them at your own time just as I'll get these chapters out at my own time as well. If some of you feel bad, especially those of you that are guests since you don't get the notification when I upload something, about not reviewing when I upload a new chapter, its fine. Read at your own pace or even hold reading until a day you feel down or awesome for some reason or another. That's what I tend to do with some of the stories I follow so don't feel bad in the least on any actions that you could take to tell me. Even if this part of the note applies to only one or only a few people, I just want to make that clear to everyone.**

 **And finally, with college right around the corner to start, I went ahead and split up the chapters for this episode so I can tell you all this information, and ease up on me while I get everything settled as I start my classes. Getting my sleep schedule back on track is really screwing with me. I hope there are some of you that understand.  
**

 **As said before, have a great time, and have fun reading.**


	41. 39 Jail break (Part 2)

**I want to apologize for a mistake I did the previous chapter regarding Ruby's weapon. As it turns out the Ruby Eyeball was the one that had the dagger and it was the Crystal Gem Ruby that had a gauntlet for the weapon. I guess I never really noticed our Ruby actually pulling out a weapon while Eyeballs was a pretty significant occurrence considering she nearly killed Steven with it. Plus the situation when Ruby pulled out the dagger at the end of the previous chapter kind of felt more intimidating for her and Marcus to threaten each other with cutting their throats you know. I'm gonna leave it like that for now and maybe change it in the future but I'm gonna focus on the future for now. In any case, on with the show.**

* * *

A dozen minutes pass and still nothing with either of our friends but we go ahead and exchange names after we paused at another hallway. I was right to call her by her Gem name, as if there are Gems with other names, since she confirmed what she's called. In the short time we've been working together, she was really freaked out and tense about finding Sapphire because at every turn and potential place that held prisoners, she was either really hopeful at finding something or completely frantic in her search. I had to hold her back a couple times to avoid getting spotted by the roving robonoids or yelling out again. I can tell she's really getting anxious, frustrated, whatever about the whole and desperately wants to find her significant other considering how much she keeps muttering Sapphires name.

"Ooooh! Where is she?!" Ruby frustratingly says from behind me as I peek around another hallway.

"Relax, we'll find her." I say to try to ease her frustration about the situation. "If she's on this ship then we'll eventually find her." I calmly explain.

"But I don't want eventually! I need to find her now!" She accentuates her anger by punching the wall.

"Hey!" I reel around and stare at her with anger in my own eyes. "My friends are all in the same boat as Sapphire is and I'm just as pissed as you are about finding them! So please calm down or else you alert them to our presence and then what? They go after us and we'll never be able to get them off this ship understand?!" I whisper angrily to her about the gravity of the situation and the consequences. She stares at me in frustration before reluctantly nodding. "Good." I look out again one last time. "Coast is clear."

With that, we continue on our way but this time Ruby is quieter although still frustrated by the whole thing. I know how she feels. My friends and family are still trapped somewhere on this ship and man do I want to find them already and get them out of here, while also possibly chopping up a certain into tiny pieces. The other… well I'll just knock her out. She's more annoying than really a hazard. That's why we increase our speed as much as we can to search the place more without getting caught.

Thing is though, her footsteps are pretty loud while mine seem to be barely making any audio at all. I remember the times before when I've tried to remain stealthy when the situation called for it but now seems different for some reason. I have no idea if it's because I'm sneaking with someone else and its comparison issues but still.

"God damnit. Where the hell is everyone? I was hoping to run into Steven already… but…" My sentence trails off as we come across a frustrating sight.

"What the—" Ruby gasps out at where we are.

"Son of a—" I growl out as we come to an open windowed roof area that leads to a dozen other directions.

"Whaaa… where do we go?" She asks while looking at all different entrances.

"Gaaaaa." I groan as I try to find any sort of way that indicates where we should go but as I look around at all the doorways, there's absolutely nothing. _'Seriously? This is really starting to piss me off.'_ I think and close my eyes to think. "Alright, alright let's think. Try to recall all the twists and turns you made and the outlay of the ship as best you can. I've been mapping the same thing with me so hopefully we can recall at least some direction we haven't gone to find our—"

"Marcus!"

"Huh?" I question at the sudden call of my name. Looking back to where I'm called from, my eyes widen as I see Steven smiling with another Gem with him. I don't care about her at all as I focus entirely on my brother. "Steven!" I call out his name and run up to him.

"Ruby!"

"Sapphire!" The other gems with us go to their own and embrace each other as Steven and I do the same.

"Steven!" I quickly scoop the kid up and embrace him in a tight hug. "Oh god my brother." I cry out and after a few more seconds of our embrace, I place him down on the ground and look at him. "Steven I… I'm sorry I… about earlier I wasn't in my right mind and I should have gone with you and I—"

"Marcus," He interrupts my rambling with a hand to my shoulder, stopping me cold. "It's alright. You're here now. That's the important part." He sincerely says to me with a smile.

Thanks to his words, my guilty mind lessens considerably and I return his smile. I place a hand on his shoulder, "Thanks man. I appreciate it." He gives me a toothy smile, no doubt because I'm no longer in my funk anymore and I'm happy about that. The two of us turn to our comrades and see that they are still embracing each other with tears threatening to break through their eyes.

They push each other to arms length and stare. "Did they hurt you?" Ruby asks Sapphire.

"No, no, I'm okay. Did they hurt you?" She reassures her friend before asking the same question back.

"Who cares?!" Ruby says with a smile and tears pooling under her eyes, very happy with the idea of being with Sapphire back than her own safety, something I kind of think of on occasion as well.

"I do!" Sapphire however does care about her friends well-being and voices it. To add to that, she kisses away Ruby's tears. _'Aww, that's actually sweet.'_ I can't help but think as I cross my arms at seeing the couple so happy together.

In their moment of happiness, Ruby picks up Sapphire and proceeds to twirl the two of them together in repeated circles, laughing all the way. I smile warmly at their open display of affection for one another. _'Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a couple so happy as these two right now than any other time.'_ For a moment that's all they do in their moment of happiness and while it's nice, we need to get out of here. "Hey you two this is nice and all but we really need to—" I start to tell them why we need to get going but they ignore me and to my surprise, the two of them start glowing. My eyes widen at the prospect and when I look down to Steven, he's in awe as well at what's going on. Turning back to the two, they are both completely glowing and their forms start shifting around and coming together. Their laughs start to overlap one another and the combined voices start to sounds somewhat vaguely familiar. _'Wait, that sort of sounds like…'_ My train of thought is derailed altogether as they finally form their fusion: Garnet.

I'm left completely speechless as she lets out a hardy laugh in mid-air and comes back down to us before landing roughly in front of the two of us, which the shake of it causes me to fall next to Steven. "Steven! Marcus! Thank you!"

"Garnet! You're a fusion!?" Steven gasps in complete surprise at the idea of one of our friends being a fusion all along.

"Son of a…" I'm kind of in the same boat with Steven on the surprised-to-all-hell cruise.

"Aw, I'm sorry. We didn't want you meeting us here like this." Garnet apologize to the both us at the apparent impromptu meeting but we aren't really all that beat up over it. Frankly I'm just happy to see Garnet again safe and sound… with a bit of an upgraded appearance since the last time I saw her. She looks more… purplish than before by I digress. It's good to see her… them… _'Crap.'_

"Well, did we make a good first impression?" Steven asks her.

"Oh Steven." She carefully cups the side of his face in a comforting manner. "We already love you." She sincerely says to him, making him smile.

' _That's good. First impressions are-… Oh.'_ "Uhhh…" I groan warily as I remember the first meet with me and Ruby.

"Yes Marcus. We love you too." Garnet notices my slight distress and says as she stands up.

"Even though…?" I let the question hang as I look to the side as I remember the uncomfortable first meeting with Ruby.

"Yes, you're good."

"Oh thank god." I breathe in relief and lie flat on my back knowing I'm not screwed with her. Garnet lets out a few chuckles before coming into my view and offering me a hand. Taking it, she easily lifts me onto my feet with ease. "Well, now that that's taken care of, let's get the others and—"

"Where is she!?"

' _Oh fuck.'_ I look down in the direction of the voice and I already feel my anger flaring at who it is. "Jasper." I growl out her name as I clench my fingers into fists.

"Your right. Steven, find the others and get to the control bridge." Garnet says to Steven.

My anger starts to reach new peaks as I remember what she did, what she told me and what she— "Go with him."

My anger turns to surprise as Garnet places a hand on my shoulder. I turn to her and look at her with disbelief. "What?! But I—"

"Marcus…" She says my name in a calm tone, making me shut up and stop any form of complaint from coming forth. "I need a rematch with her… and I remember what happened with Pearl."

* * *

 _*Poof*_

* * *

I inwardly groan as I remember my actions when Pearl was destroyed, right in front of everyone. Garnet wasn't… around to see what I did when it happened to her. "Relax." She breaks me from my struggle with her voice. As I look up, I see a smile on her face, one filled with determination and shows she's ready. "I'm ready now."

I stare at her and can tell that she's sure of this new engagement with Jasper. She's not cocky or really sure of herself on that she'll win. But she's confident.

I however want to kill Jasper. ' _I really want to hurt her, to torture her and make her regret ever being made and—'_

"No." I tear myself away from my thoughts and take a step away from them.

"Marcus I know your angry but I need you too—"

"No no no no… not that." I quickly stop an argument from forming from Garnet thinking I said no to her but in reality I said it to me. My mind was starting to get to some… dark places on her and I can't… I can't fuel it. I close my eyes and place my hand over my heart, steadying myself as much as I can. Once I feel comfortable again, I turn back to my friends and nod. "Alright, I'll go. Good luck with her."

Garnet looks at me weirdly but nods nonetheless. She turns to Steven, "Good, get going you two."

"But I don't know where they are." Steven points out and come to think about it, I don't know either. I went nearly everywhere, I think, with Ruby and we didn't find any clue or indication as to where we could find the others. However Garnet proceeds to give us a massive cheat code by kissing Steven on his forehead. It doesn't look like much to me but the starry expression in eyes leads me to believe he has what we need. "Future vision..." _'Of course.'_ I chuckle at the new information. "Wait, are you gonna be able to beat her on your own?" He suddenly asks her.

"It's okay, Steven. I'm never alone." She tells him with a smile. With that he nods to her before looking to me. We both nod and I follow him to another entrance. "Marcus." I stop just before I turn the corner to look at her. "Good luck."

I stare at her for a bit before I return the smile and nod back. My smile disappears before nodding behind her. "Looks like your gonna need it." I call out and continue chasing after my guide.

* * *

After he leaves, my happy demeanor disappears and I look down in sadness.

"Not as much as you will, Marcus." I mutter grimly.

The benefits of being able to see the future are grand and have helped us out some many times before… but it's even worse and a burden when you see the people you love get hurt… and can do nothing to help them.

"Good luck… Marcus." I wish him luck one more time, more so for the future than now.

"Oh great."

' _Show time.'_ I turn around to meet my opponent. Someone I very much want a rematch with.

* * *

"You know where we're going Steven?!"

"Positive!"

"…I'll take your word for it." I toss down the head I took off the bipedal robonoid to the ground and continue moving with my brother. I stay as close to him as I can to make sure that if anymore of these new robonoids appear I would be able to take them out without him getting caught by them. So far I've caught them off guard so we haven't really seen just what their capable of but I have no intention of finding out just what they can do.

We continue to make our way towards where the others are and Steven has proven capable of the temporary future vision given to him by Garnet because we see them real soon. The two of them are in side-by-side cells looking defeated but they perk as they see the two of us running up to them. Without a word, Steven goes to make an entrance for Amethyst and I do the same for Pearl. The two of them clamber out of their cells and nod to the both of us. Without another word, Steven leads us off to the next phase of our destination: The Bridge, or control room, whichever you prefer but still the same. As soon as we make it to a couple of doors that are much different than what I've seen, I can only surmount that it's to our destination. Pearl tries to open it by using the control panel on the side of the door but a red error buzz means she fails. She groans in frustration and pulls out her spear before trying to wedge the door open. As Steven and Amethyst help her, I look closely at the panel for anything I can do. I'm about to rip it off and fiddle with the wires but the words look familiar. To my surprise, the words start to make sense to me and I can understand them. _'Wha-… but how did—'_ I shake my head of the useless thoughts and start my hacking of the panel. The others are about to question what I'm doing but as I implant the last code, the door suddenly opens. They look on in surprise at my skill but shuffling inside gets our attention foremost. Peridot presses two buttons, one igniting an alarm that blares throughout the ship but no sound goes off, just lights, and another allows her to pull out another one of those Gem Destabilizers that Jasper used on Garnet back to the beach and rushes us. With the Gems at risk, Steven and I push them back and engage her ourselves.

To Peridot's utter surprise as Steven grabs the Destabilizer bare handed, he doesn't explode or fall apart in the least bit and growls at her in defiance as the yellow lines roll over his body, giving him only a slight bit of discomfort. With him holding her, I move in to engage. She looks at me with a look of surprise as I slide right up to her. I give her a smirk before I bring my right hand back and launch a palm strike to her hand. My attack forces her to let go of the weapon and interrupts her control of the digits in her hand. Before she can react, I let loose a few rapid punches to her chest and stomach to stun her. As she slides back from my hits, I move behind her, taking her right arm with her and pulling it up into an arm lock. She lets out a gasp of pain from my move but before she can complain, I let her go and kick her away from me, right towards Amethyst who uses her whip and completely subdues Peridot by wrapping her with it several dozen times till she's almost completely covered except her head and feet. Once Amethyst tightens the bindings to make sure Peridot stays secure, I move over to her and start pick pocketing her. To my annoyance, I don't find my gun on her. "Where's my gun?" I ask her.

"Wouldn't you like to know." She sneers at me.

I let out a groan and leave her where she is. "We don't have time for this." I say and nod for Pearl to move over to the console.

"Don't touch that! You clods don't know what you're doing!" Peridot cries out but goes ignored by us.

"You got this, Pearl!" Amethyst encourages her fellow Gem.

"Okay, ship. Turn us around!" Pearl says and presses her hands to the console. At first I expect her to start pressing buttons but to my surprise her hands instead go 'into' the console and stay there. "Ooooooh!" She lets out a long gasp as her eyes start running lines of code on them.

"Pearl, you alright?" I ask her in concern.

"Yes, yes, I'm alright Marcus. It's just… overwhelming." She replies as she looks off into space.

' _Wow.'_ I think as I look down at the console and how Pearl is accessing it. _'She's using the controls directly with her mind. This type of technological access can be a big help to me if I can replicate it.'_

"Marcus!" I turn back to Steven's voice and my eyes widen. A couple more of those robonoids start moving in and immediately advance on Steven and Amethyst. Bolting away from Pearl's side, I take off to engage and destroy them. One of them has its arms extend two machete-like blades from its arms and swings one of them up then downwards towards Steven. Just before it connects, I grab the arm with both hands. Wrapping my arms and body around the appendage, I kick my leg out and send the rest of it flying away from us, tearing off the invisible connectors to limb as well. Without missing a beat, I twist around and throw the limb with the blade still extended like a javelin towards the other robonoid, who is trying to attack Amethyst with some beefy looking gauntlets, almost as big as Garnet's , but she keeps dodging its attacks but even then she still has trouble since she's also keeping Peridot restrained.

She doesn't have to dodge for long anymore as my impromptu spear skewers it through the chest and embeds it into a wall. It's stunned for a second but before it can try to tear out the weapon, I tackle it into the wall and bring my right elbow up, caving in its head into the wall and disabling it. After that small bout of fighting, I breathe a sigh of relief. "Everyone okay?" I call out to everyone.

"Yeah." Amethyst says.

"No." Peridot pipes up for some reason but we ignore her.

"I'm good." Steven replies.

"Pearl?"

"Yeeeessss?" She says but her word comes out more as a stuttered question since she's still working on the ships piloting.

"Alright, we're good here." Since everyone calls out their okay, let myself relax a bit.

"Hehe." However Peridot's chuckling puts me on edge.

"What? What's so funny?" I quickly ask and slam my foot onto the ground next to her head as an intimidation factor.

"Ha, what you thought those were the only combat robonoids I had?!" She yells out smugly, not at all intimidated by my action.

"What are you—?" Amethyst begins to say but I silence her as I hear something.

*Thump*Thump*Thump*Thump*

The distinct sound of multiple footsteps start to become louder and louder. Turning back to the only doorway, my eyes widen as several more combat robonoids start making their way in. Some pull out blades for their hands, others hands bulge up and become heavy gauntlets to fight, and a couple of them have their hands turn into two pronged tasers with a blue arc of lightning shooting between the prongs. "Damn." I curse under my breath and walk forward to them. "Stay back." I command my friends and get ready to fight. As I stand in front of them, I reach for my Gems to…

I stop midway to pulling out the swords and drop my hands. I give a long hard look to my left gem before closing my eyes and sighing. _'… I'm sorry.'_ I open my eyes back up and stare at my enemies before slowly bringing my hands up to fight. "Let's go." I mutter to myself and charge forward.

* * *

Steven looks on in worry as his brother fights to keep the combat robonoids from swarming them but he can tell he's starting to falter. Especially when one of the robots slugs him in the stomach, making him curl forward for a moment in pain but quickly jumps back from another from slicing him.

"Marcus! Use your swords!" Amethyst calls out to him but groans at the blows he takes.

"No… I still got this." He stubbornly ignores her and re-rights himself before continuing his attack.

"What's wrong with him? Why isn't he using his weapons?" She questions out loud at Marcus's reluctance.

"Maybe he realizes how futile it is to continue- Gah!"

"Quiet you." Peridot starts to open her trap but Amethyst interrupts her by tightening her whip restraints.

' _Why isn't he using his swords? What's stopping him from—'_ Stevens train of thought stops as he watches Marcus reach for his left gem he stops from doing anything with it, growls in anger and resumes fighting even more. Unconsciously, Steven reaches downwards and places a hand over his own Gem or more specifically, his moms gem.

* * *

"… _Steven… she told me how many Gems my mom… how many she… shattered. So many Gems Steven."_

* * *

"That's it." He breathes out as he remembers the conversation he had with him. How he learned some info about his mother he couldn't believe. How many Gems she… "That's why he can't use his weapons. That's why he WON'T use them!" Steven cries out at the realization.

Peridot and Amethyst look at the kid in confusion. "Whaaaa?" Peridot questions in confusion.

"What do you mean, Ste—"

"Pearl!" Steven runs over to the Gem piloting the ship. "Pearl! Pearl! Pearl!" He shakes her out of the technological trance she was in.

"Wha-? Steven!" She looks down at the kid in surprise as to why he's interrupting her in this delicate task. "Why are you interrupting me? I need to—"

"Give him your spear!"

"Huh?" She asks in confusion about what he means.

"Marcus! You have to give him your spear!" He says to her and points to where the fighting is. More of the robonoids have moved into the room and are focusing their attacks on the hybrid. Without a weapon, the blades and blunt weapons the robonoids are using against him are starting to weigh on him with the amount of dodging he has to do.

"I don't understand." She says in confusion as to why he's going bare-handed. Sure he's done the same before on some occasions but that's usually when his opponents were bare as well. "Why doesn't he—"

"He can't Pearl." Steven interrupts her with a sad tone. She looks down at Steven as he looks up at her with sad eyes. "Please… just trust me." He pleads with her.

She stares at the kid for a few more seconds but a cry from Marcus shifts her view.

* * *

"Aaaahhh!" I cry out as I'm thrown to the ground. "Damnit." I curse as I curl up a little from the soreness of my body before looking back at my opponents. I'm starting to get winded from the fighting. My attacks may destroy them pretty easily but these things are pretty durable so my hits take more and more out of me and with my reluctance to use my-… her weapons, I'm having trouble. "C'mon Marcus." I grunt and get back into a combat ready stance as a couple more file through the door. Several pieces of their own litter the ground around us and it looks like there is an infinite number of them considering just how many of them are still outside the door. _'C'mon Marcus. Figure out a way man. You have to!'_

The lead combat robonoid raises its bladed hand above it and gets ready to strike me. "Marcus!" I look upwards upside down to Pearl and my eyes widen to what she's doing. As I look back to the robonoid it begins to bring down its weapons on me but by then, I'm already moving. Planting my hands firmly under me, I kick my legs downwards and launch myself back, the blade just barely nicking the back of my shirt as I fly backwards into the air.

As I'm in the air, I reach my hand out and nab the spear in mid-air before falling to the ground. As my feet hit the ground, I swing the spear one-handed away from me and slice the head right off the robonoid.

A tense silence falls over us as the head slides in half and falls to the ground, the piece falling and impacting the metal floor with an unceremonious clunk and the rest of the body crumpling away as well. The rest of my opponents look down at the body for a second before looking back at me and getting ready. Very slowly, I wipe a bit of blood on the corner of my mouth and smirking. "Let's do this." I mouth the words and start walking a couple steps before sprinting forward.

"Marcus!" At Steven's voice behind me, I jump in the air and twirl myself horizontally. Right below me, his shield comes sailing right towards the robonoids, shattering one their chests to oblivion. As the shield ricochets back, I grab the weapon in my other arm and spin downwards, slicing another robonoid donw the middle and breaking anothers head. As the two body's crumble to the floor, I place my right foot behind me and brace myself with Steven's shield in my right hand, and Pearls spear braced on the top right of the shield, reminiscent of the Spartans combat stance in their phalanx formation.

Five combat robonoids push forward to attack me but I smile at their formation. As soon as they get close enough, I thrust my spear forward and skewer three of them on one thrust right through the chests. The last two come up on either side of me but I quickly pull out the spear and using the shield to block on my left, I duck the rights attack and twirl my spear around me, slicing the chest in half on all on all of them that tried to attack me. As they fall, I move forward and start stabbing, slicing and bashing the ones that are on the sides of the room before moving in to the ones in the middle. I can't focus entirely on the middle otherwise the ones on the side of me would attack my flank. After attacking a few more times, Pearls spear holds strong and is just as ease to use as I remember when I attacked Frybo, and Steven's shield works out beautifully for me as it absorbs so much of the force of their attacks and doesn't look like it's going to break anytime soon. Thanks to my onslaught, the combat robonoids are forced back into the doorway and I can funnel them through it.

There are still a ton of them outside the room and easily outnumber me but thanks to the only door their numbers mean nothing. However I can't take the chance of them overpowering me in here and attack my friends. Amethyst needs to keep Peridot restrained, Steven's not good in combat yet and Pearl is piloting the ship to get us home. Getting back into the same stance I started with, I wait for them to come at me. A bladed combat robonoid rushes forward and stabs at my shield.

Wrong move.

I push my shield back against my opponent and force it back, where it stumbles back against another but they both die as my spear runs through both of them. With my spear pulled back, I rush forward and shield bash the broken pieces, making them rain down on the rest in the doorway. They are momentarily distracted by the action which allows me to do another thrust attack, stabbing one of them out the door. I quickly follow it out door and as soon as I'm out the door, "Haaa!" I bash my shield on the panel next to the door, breaking it to hell and the doors shut closed. _'Perfect.'_ I think and look at both hallways on either side of me. _'This is going to be interesting.'_ Both sides have one robonoid each coming after me; the left uses a powerful set of gauntlets to engage me and the right has blades. I bring my respective weapons up and block their attacks, my shield absorbs the blow of the gauntlet and my spear catches the bladed attack. Our weapons remain connected to each other for a couple seconds before I push them away from me with a grunt. They take a step back before going in for another attack on me. As they both attack at the same time, I jump up and angle myself horizontally, dodging their attacks with ease before I come back down to the ground turned around and attack them with the opposite weapons. I slam the edge of my shield against the face of the bladed robonoid and stab the head of the gauntlet robonoid. As I pull both weapons away, the head stays skewered on my spear. I look at it for a second before I see one of the combat robonoids moving closer. I slice downwards toward the robonoid and the force of it sends the head flying towards the active ones head, where both of them shatter and break.

From there it's a matter of watching both sides of me and switching from attacking and defending against both of them, sometimes at the same time. The narrowness of the hallways ensures that not very many of them can attack me at once and when they try to get close in mass I either do another 360 attack with the spear slice them dead or force them back, or I use an area-of-effect kinetic strike to push them back. The fighting doesn't last long though as all of a sudden the entire place shakes.

"Whoa!" I yell as I'm momentarily taken off my feet before the places lurches horribly, lurching me and all my enemies hard against the wall. I grunt as I'm slammed into the wall but thankfully, Steven's shield saves me some pain but the weapon shatters. Pearls spear falls from my hand too and disappears. With no weapons on me or in my hands, I quickly get back onto my feet and prepare to fight but all the robonoids I was fighting were destroyed by the sudden shift in the ships movement. Considering how much damage they sustained, it looks like I got lucky with Steven's shield or else I would have likely broken an arm. _'Holy… what the hell happened? What's going on?'_ I question in my head as I try to think of why the ship suddenly started moving. I figured some sort of dampening field is used on the interior of the ship to prevent the occupants from flailing around like I did so either something disabled it or just something changed the trajectory. With the door shut tight, I don't bother opening it so I go down the hallway and find a window. As I peer through it, I'm left in awe as we are headed straight for earth. I smile at the thought that Pearl simply changed our destination but as I see the ship starting to tip in an odd direction, plus the beginning of flames and the heat from the atmosphere start covering the exterior of the ship and plates start tearing off, I think things are starting to take a turn for the worse.

*CRACK*

Much much worse.

"Fuck!" I yell as one of the plates comes flying off the ships hull and impacts the window I was looking through, sending spider web cracks throughout the entire thing. The near instantaneous impact surprises the hell out of me and sends me falling onto my back. I breathe heavily as I came so close to getting sucked out into space and possibly burned up into the atmosphere. I still remember my regeneration ability but even I don't want to test that limit. I slowly stand up and steady myself from the low rumbling of the ship as I stare at the entirely cracked window in front of me. "Oh man… I need to get out of here." I mutter and take a step towards the bridge.

"Marcus!" I stop as my name is called out. I turn back to see Garnet running towards me.

"Garnet! Boy am I glad to see you!" I reply happily as I meet her halfway. As I get closer, I take note that she looks a little battered and bruised but nothing too serious. "What's going on?!" I ask her in hopes that she might have an idea.

"The ships going down. I destroyed its power core and everything is tearing apart." She informs me. To accentuate her point, a wall paneling near us snaps off and a couple cables of wires start flailing about, still running electricity through them.

"Son of a—" I grunt as the cords come dangerously close to electrocuting the both of us. Well, more so me considering she can conduct electricity in the first place. We step away from the hazard and I point to the bridges door. "C'mon, the others are in the bridges room but I had to jam the door prevent the robonoids from getting to them." I inform her as we make it to the front of the door. "You're gonna have to get creative to get in."

"Got it." She nods and cracks her knuckles.

"Good. Now let's—" I begin to get on one side of the door se we can pull them apart but I suddenly remember someone. "Oh god… Lapis!" I yell her name and back away. Garnet looks to me as I start walking in away. "She… she's still in her cell! I have to go get her!" I frantically say and take off.

"Wait!" Garnet grabs my arm before I can go.

"Damnit Garnet I know its suicidal but I just can't—" Before I can finish my rant, she interrupts me by grabbing my head with both her hands and kissing my forehead. For a split second I question why… but a vision flows through my mind. A corridor from where I am flows left right and forward for so long, with several places on the walls and ceilings cracking and tearing apart, revealing wires, pipes, power cables and girders in my vision. As it comes down to another hallway, I vaguely remember the familiar setting and my heart leaps as I see Lapis curled up just like how I left her. Everything returns to normal and I shake my head to clear myself. I look at Garnet with a confused expression.

She doesn't say anything at first, instead she gives me a comforting smile. "Go get her." She calmly says over the rapidly heightened sound of the ships destruction.

My confused expression turns to one of determination. After taking a step back from her, I give a firm nod before we both take off down opposite directions of the hallway.

* * *

Feeling confident in Marcus's ability, she moves over to the door and forms her gauntlets. Straightening out her hands, she thrusts them forward. "Ha!" She yells as she drives the tips of her fingers with immense force directly into where the two doors split door. Her hands go in easy and with a little bit of elbow grease, she pulls the doors open without much effort on her part.

"Garnet!" All three of her family members and friends inside the bridge turn to her in joy at seeing their fusion leader well and there in front of them. Unfortunately Peridot who was tied up was able to escape thanks to the rapidly destroying ship but that's beside the point now.

"This ship is going down!" Garnet tells them all as the ship rapidly descends to the planet below.

"What about Lapis?" Steven asks worriedly. He remembers how defeated his and Marcus's friend looked inside that cell and he does not want to see her get hurt inside that prison.

"Don't worry. Marcus's got her." She tells him as she moves over to them.

"Wha?" He asks in confusion.

As they all huddle together, Garnet gives the kid a smile. "He's got her."

* * *

I continue my down the hallway and twist through a few more, just as the vision guides me again. _'So this is what Steven saw. Freaky.'_ I comment in my head as I remember the few times Garnet gave Steven access to her future vision.

Unfortunately the vision isn't perfect as in the vision I see a hallway I can traverse without much difficulty. As I round my way to a very long hallway, I stop momentarily as I stare at the destruction and obstacles before me. Several girders, wires and pieces of debris block my way towards my goal. "God damnit. How the hell do I—" I begin to curse my luck at this point and I contemplate finding another route.

The vision cuts through me again and shows me the end. As the ships breaks around her, I watch as Lapis looks up for a second, then down in forlorn hopelessness.

I clench my fists and grit my teeth in anger, before my faces calms to one of firm determination. The ship jerks a little, almost throwing me off balance, but I remain standing and bounce on the balls of my feet.

"Alright, c'mon… let's do this. Sprint this… don't stop!" I yell at myself and run forward. My feet slam into the metal floors with loud thumps but they are nothing compared to the rumbling and tearing of the entire ship around me. I sprint my way through the ship as fast as I can without stopping, doing the best I can to make sure that I make it to her without any falter in my steps whatsoever. I slide under low-hanging exposed wires, under girder pieces that fell, vaulting over broken pieces of the walls that collapsed in front of me. As I come upon an almost entirely blocked point in the hallway, everything around me slows but my mind goes into overdrive in finding a way forward without stopping. It doesn't take long as I spot an exposed bar horizontal just above where a small gap is above the collapse. Everything goes back to normal as I move even faster to implement my plan.

As I get closer and closer to the point, explosions go off behind me and a quick glance shows a cloud of fiery green following me. _'C'mon… c'mon!'_ I yell in my mind as the flames start to get closer and closer to me but my objective comes within reach. At the last second before I hit the wall, I jump up and grab the pipe on the ceiling. Using my momentum, I pull my feet up and throw myself towards exposed hole in the wall. It's a tight fit and the back of my shirt rips but I sail through the hole with ease and roll before continuing on. The collapsed wall behind me explodes outward from the explosion that followed me but the explosion dies down from being snuffed so suddenly. The way is clear back and the green fire dissipates.

The vision returns as I make my way forward and shows me a couple more turns before I make it to her.

"Hold on Lapis… I'm coming." I mutter to myself and put more gas into my sprint.

* * *

Lapis looks down in sadness as the ship around her begins to fall apart. Seeing how powerful and well equipped Homeworld was when she arrived, she knew any hope of retaliation was going to fail.

But now as she feels the ship around her start to break as it reenters earth's atmosphere, she knows how useless her words have been on her friends. By telling them to not fight back, she hoped they would follow through with what she said and hopefully Homeworld would have gone easy on those she cared about. The Crystal Gems she could care less about but Steven and… Marcus… were the ones she wanted to warn.

Since the ship is falling and it was the two of them she saw out of their cells, it's obvious who it was that caused the explosion and destruction of the ship.

"Haaaa." She lets out a sigh and curls her legs up as she waits for the impending crash and amount of pain she'll feel when her cells breaks apart.

"LAPIS!"

She jerks up at her name being called. She looks out her cell but a giant railed support beam that fell in front of her cells barrier blocks most of her view at first.

"Lapis!" The voice yells again and she stands up in confusion.

' _Who is calling for me?'_ She questions in confusion in her head. Before she can speculate anymore, someone slides out from under a collapsed beam that blocked the door away from her cell and stands up. Her eyes widen as she sees the person that was calling her name and here while the ship is breaking. "Marcus?" She calls his name in confusion as to why he's here.

He jerks his head in the direction he heard his name being called and looks relieved to see his friend safe. "Lapis! Oh thank god." He praises as he runs up to the front of her cell and looks at the blockage. "I'm here to get you out of here! Let me just…" He grabs the bottom of the beam and gets ready to move it.

"Stop!" Marcus stops in surprise at Lapis's demand. "Just… stop! Okay!"

"Wha- Lapis I—" He begins to say but she stops him.

"No listen! I told you if you didn't fight then they would go easy on us. But now look at us!" She yells as she waves her arms around them. Another rumble goes through the ship and they stumble before going back to normal. "Is this any better?!" She angrily questions him. There is some truth to what she says. If he and the Crystal Gems had just submitted to Homeworld then chances they would be alright and no drama could have transpired. However since they rebelled, she was thrown into a cell, Garnet was nearly destroyed, Steven is sporting a black eye and Marcus almost… The person in question looks down in sadness as he remembers what he became and how he almost attacked one of his friends. "Just… just leave me. Okay? Just go." She demands of him and turns around, not wanting to look back at the person that caused her so much grief in such a short time.

"I'm sorry."

"…What?" Lapis asks in confusion at his words.

"I am sorry for what I did. And I'm sorry that we got you into this mess… but if you think I'm going leave you here to die then you must be out of your mind!" Marcus slowly explains before his words and voice start getting louder and louder.

"What are you—?!"

"Nh!" He interrupts her by kicking the part of the beam that is still connected to the wall, the metal horribly warped. The metal bends some more but doesn't break. He kicks it a few more time in anger until it nearly splinters off. Grabbing the broken piece, he lifts the giant piece of metal in anger and pulls it away. "Nnnnngggggrrraaa!" He yells in anger and strains to pick the heavy piece up at first but he manages to. In a roar of anger, he rips the weakened piece of the metal off the wall and tosses the beam out of the way. He breathes heavily for a second before walking over to the cell door, stopping just from entering it. "I care about you Lapis. More than you think. I don't know what it was that I became but that thing doesn't speak for me!" He yells as he points to himself in anger. The thing he became was an enigma to both himself and Lapis. One thing he does know for sure is that he wasn't in the right mind whatsoever when he changed so I doesn't speak for his sane mind. He moves forward and creates a hole in the barrier. Lapis looks on in surprise as he keeps his firm expression as the yellow lines roll over his body again. He doesn't pay the dull pain any attention as he speaks, "Hate me forever if you want," He extends a hand towards the prisoner. "But I'll be DAMNED if I let you die here!" He yells over the increasing screeching of the ships destruction.

' _Marcus…'_ Her thought voice her awe at her friend. The person who really is her friend. The thing that he became was the stuff of nightmares and frightened her to her very core. But now here he is, willing to forgo his own safety and well-being to make sure that she is safe.

Very carefully and slowly, she extends her hand to him.

"C'mon!" He reaches forward and snags her hand before pulling her out the cell. Once she's out, he looks down the hallway before turning back to her. "We have to get to Steven! His shield can protect us from the crash." He informs her quickly and pulls her down the hallway.

"Whoa!" She yelps as his sudden movement almost throws her off her feet, making her stumble but keeps up with him.

They don't go far however as another rumble from the ship nearly makes them fall to the ground. Lapis however almost touches a set of low hanging exposed wires but Marcus quickly pulls her away from them before they touch her. "Damn," He growls as he sees the hazards around them. "We're too slow. The ship'll be destroyed before we can get to safety." He deduces as he looks around before looking to his companion.

"Well what are we supposed to- Aap!" She yelps out loud as suddenly she becomes weightless.

"Just hang on tight!" Marcus orders her as he sweeps her off her feet bridle style. Instinctively she wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him tightly. As he starts making his way down the hallway much faster this time, he doesn't notice the blush forming on her face.

* * *

I have to admit it was awkward the second I picked Lapis up into my arms but I think I can forgo the awkwardness in favor of us getting to safety. She hugs her arms tightly around my neck so she doesn't fall off, not that she could considering my left arm is under her legs and my right is holding the small of her back. Still while it feels weird for the both of us, I can move just as well as I did before and I can avoid the more hazardous pieces of the ships destruction. More wires hang torn off from the walls, broken pipes jut out of walls, supports hang precariously, and more than a few windows are cracked from the pressure or debris.

All in all, it's not looking good the further we go into the ship.

As we come upon another broken section off a hallway, I momentarily pause. "Alright, we just keep going and—"

*Boom*

My words are cut off as the somewhat safe looking hallway suddenly erupts in a small explosion that forces me back. I quickly turn around so my back is the fire and Lapis isn't in the way. "Argh!" I grunt as the flames barely hit me from behind but nothing too bad.

"Marcus! Are you okay?" Lapis asks me worriedly as she gets down. I take a second to steady myself from the explosion and the flames.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good." I reassure her as the ships starts tipping and everything feels like it's starting to warp. "Oh man. This isn't good." I say in unease as our situation becomes even direr.

"What do we do?" She quickly asks me in worry as the way we were going continues to go up in flames.

"I… I…" I try to think of something but the screeching metal becomes louder, almost deafening. I grunt as sparks rain down on us. "I don't know! I—"

I start to lose hope. Everything is literally being torn apart around us and I can't find a clear way for us to move forward. I hug Lapis close to me as everything goes to hell around us.

*Rrrrrrrrrrrr*

A low warping and bending of metal sound emanates around us, like a submarine going too far underwater and the metal starts bending. As the walls around us start cracking, my attention is focused on a lone pipe visible through a broken piece of the wall directly behind Lapis. The pipe is intact and runs through the rest of the ship but the bending gets worse on the lone piece of metal. I can visibly see it arching and trying to take the strain rest of the ship is having on the poor metal but it can't.

Everything slows down as the hollow pipe of metal snaps off from the wall and is sent hurtling right towards us.

To my horror, right towards Lapis's back.

As the jagged piece of metal cartwheels through the air in slow motion, I do without thinking, twist us around.

The pain that follows is excruciating.

My whole body visibly jerks as the pipe lodges itself squarely in my back with a grotesque sound. My hands grip Lapis's shoulders painfully so but they let up as my legs start give out.

"Marcus? Marcus what's wrong?" Lapis begins to frantically ask me what's wrong but everything starts to go quiet. ' _Hurts… so much… pain. I can't… stop…'_ My thoughts become incoherent as I fall to my knees. The look of horror on her face is almost as painful to watch as the one shooting through my body. I feel a small dribble of blood go down the right corner of my lip as I stare aimlessly at the ceiling. "Marcus? No no nonono noooo! Please don't die on me! Please you can't! You can't now!" She starts screaming as my grip on her starts to slacken and my vision darkens.

The ships no better off as everything tears apart completely.

She hugs me as the ships explodes and crashes.

"MAAARRCCUUUUUUSSS!"

Her cry for me is the last and only echoes I hear as everything blows up around us.

 **Don't worry folks, the next part will be up either tomorrow or the next day after.**

 **No long winded notes here because this won't be around early enough for the majority of you all to see. The final part will have what I have on my mind. Still, I'll say what I always say.**

 **Have a great day and have fun reading.**


	42. 40 Jail break (Part 3)

**Things are gonna get crazy people. Fair warning.**

Lion runs around the broken pieces of the crashed warship in search for his charge. As he comes upon a peculiar set of rubble, he lets out a roar blast that throws the rubble off its occupants and reveals the pink bubble underneath and its passengers. The bubble disappears and the Crystal Gems plus Steven look out at the wreckage.

"Nice one." Garnet compliments the kid at his quick thinking with the bubble.

"Oh my gosh! I can't believe you're a fusion all the time!" Steven completely ignores the compliment and focuses on the new information he learned when he brought the two Gems together.

"You met Ruby and Sapphire?!" Amethyst asks in surprise. Considering how long they've kept this a secret, her surprise is warranted.

"Oh no! We were going to introduce you. Garnet, your plan!" Pearl replies dejectedly to the fusion. Steven looks up in confusion to the Gem.

"We were waiting for your birthday." Garnet explains.

"We can still do it! I'll just pretend I didn't know!" He offers an alternative for them. However all he does is give them smiles and a chuckle from Amethyst. However his happy demeanor turns to confusion as he remembers one other missing person. "Wait where's Marcus?" He asks while looking around.

"I'm sure he's fine. He's always been a resourceful one in extreme situations." Garnet simply says, not knowing the extent to his condition at the moment.

"Ugh!" A grunt catches their attention as a hand busts through the rubble a little ways away from them.

"Is that him?" Steven innocently asks.

"Auh…" Jasper climbs out of the rubble and tries to walk over to the Gems but she collapses onto her knees. "Don't think you've won."

"Nope." Amethyst pops the 'p' in the word and stands as does the others.

"You only beat me 'cause you're a fusion! If I had someone to fuse with I'd—" Jasper begins to drone on but a slight shift in some more rubble nearby gets hers and everyone's attention. "Huh?"

"Ugh!" Lapis grunts out as she pushes a large piece of stone off of her. She falls to her knees in exhaustion and a stain of blood on her dress. She looks up to see Jasper and everyone else at a standoff before she suddenly remembers. "Oh no!" She gasps out before going back into the rubble and digging. "C'mon c'mon. Where are you? Where are you?!" She frantically says as she begins digging and looking for the person who nearly gave his life for her. As she pulls away another rock, her heart sours as she spots the unconscious face of Marcus. "Oh, Marcus! Don't worry! I'm gonna get you out!" She says as she grabs the large piece of metal overlapping his body and with a grunt of effort, she pulls it off.

Her hands go to her mouth in horror at what she sees. Pearl turns Steven away so he doesn't see.

Marcus lies on the ground with the pipe that impacted his back jutting out his chest, a jagged bent part at the end and the back embedded into the stone behind him. To make matter worse, another piece of metal has lodged itself to the right of his stomach.

He's not moving, nor does it look like his chest is breathing either.

Lapis looks on in horror as she takes a step back.

"Hey!"

"Ah!" She yells out as Jasper grabs her hand.

Everything hurts. It hurts so much I can barely think or move. I can't move and everything is dark.

I can hear voices but I can't tell who they are.

"Ah!"

* * *

My eyes shoot open as I hear Lapis's cry of surprise. I try to move but I let out a strangled groan from the pain. My eyes widen as I stare downwards where the source of my pain is. Two piece of metal are jutting out of my chest and stomach and just seeing them there makes the pain flare up even more. The crackling of the fire around me and the pain prevents me from accurately hearing what the others are saying. Jaspers garbled voice makes me angry but it's the picture of seeing her standing next to Lapis with a hand extended to her that makes me confused. When Lapis looks down saddened by something, my ragged breathing hitches as she takes her hand.

' _Oh god no… I have to… Fight…'_ My mind tells me as I try to lift myself off but the pipes in my stomach and chest flare up too much in pain.

The two of them stars moving around and it only takes the first movement for me to recognize a fusion. _'No. Fight…'_ It gets louder in my head. I grit my teeth as I push forward, more blood coming out.

' _Fight!'_ It almost screams. My teeth grit harder as I slowly crouch up, the pain spiking to new heights with the pipe tearing through my chest.

' _FIGHT!'_ I push forward, the slightly bent part at the front catches me from coming off entirely.

' _FIGHT MOTHERFUCKER FIIIIIGHT!'_

"RAAAAAAAGHHH!" I scream loudly in both anger and pain as my body comes off the metal. All eyes are instantly turned to me from my voice and go to my feet. Lapis's eyes widen at seeing me stand now. I barely stand on both of my feet from the trauma my body sustained but I push through the excruciating agonizing pain. With firm grunt, I grab the metal in my stomach. "Grah!" I yell as I rip it out. An arterial spray of blood stains the ground in front of me. As I look down at my wounds, I place a hand over my chest as I already feel my failsafe taking effect. However I don't care about myself. "LAPIS!" I yell her name as I look at both Jasper and Lapis together, the both of them are just one move away from completing their fusion. "DON'T… please." I yell first but it then turns to a breathless voice.

"Ma… Marcus." I manage to hear her breathe out my name and it takes me a second to gather myself.

"Don't… don't do this. Please I beg of you please don't do this. Don't go with her." I beg. Fusion isn't my area of expertise, not by a long shot, but I know of its significance. The idea of Lapis and Jasper… "Arrrrr!" I grunt as the last of my wounds start healing. "Just don't!" I yell again and stand firm with my hands clenched. I can feel everyone's eyes on me at seeing my wounds stitch up right before their eyes but I ignore them. "I'm sorry for what I almost did to you on this beach Lapis but please I beg of you! Don't go with her! Please for the love of everything in the universe don't go with her!" I beg of her. Tears are starting to fall from my eyes and everything feels numb. What I became still haunts me and I don't want my actions to be the cause for her to… to leave us. _'She can't… she shouldn't she…'_

I can already feel my body starting to shut down.

Lapis stares at me with wide sad eyes. I was something horrible when she came back to earth and now I'm so… broken. She looks down with closed eyes… and I see a trail of tears fall down her face.

She moves close to Jasper and they start glowing.

' _Noooo…'_ My heart breaks at the sight.

My legs start to shake as my body goes limp as I stare at the two of them start changing, molding and mixing together, the sight of it making me feel like hell.

"Marcus!" I barely hear my friends cry out in worry for me as they crowd around me.

"Are you alright?"

"What happened to you?"

"How are you healed?"

The others ask me questions but my mind is focused entirely on the glowing form that's growing bigger and bigger in front of us.

The cackle of laughing diverts their attention from me to the fusion. As the fusion finally solidifies, I'm staring at a tall aqua green creature with six arms, four of which act as legs for the bottom half of her. She stares at us with her four eyes and sneers at us with a twisted smile before she extends her left arm towards the ocean. A large arm of water emerges from the ocean and the fusion smiles at us evilly. _'That's… that's Lapis's power.'_ I think in anger. I try to clench my fists in anger but their starting to go numb.

"Ha ha ha ha ha- huh?" To everyone's surprise, the water arm summoned out of the water latches onto the fusions arm and turns to a shackle. Another arm of water emerges and grabs her other arm before turning into a shackle as well. "What?" The fusion asks in confusion as to what's going on. Another blast of water hits her in the back and becomes a set of chains that wrap around her chest and neck. "Ughh!" She groans at the resistance as she slowly is dragged towards the ocean. "What are you doing?!" I can make out Jaspers voice in the fusions voice.

"I'm done being everyone's prisoner." My heart is lightly lifted at hearing Lapis's voice. Even more so when I recognize her eyes in the fusions face. "Now you're my prisoner!" She yells defiantly as two more water arms grab the fusions back legs. "And I'm never letting you go!"

The fusion grunts and groans as she is pulled into the ocean by the water until only her upper torso and face are visible. In another moment of defiance by the two, the fusion tries to split but stay rooted together.

"Lapis!" Steven cries out her name.

"Lapis." I breathe out her name weakly as I reach my arm forward for her.

In that moment, the fusion stops struggling and stares at me. Not in the face of Jasper but I can see her. I can see Lapis. "You've saved me once before Marcus… and now you've saved me from the ship crashing. Ngh!" She grunts as Jasper tries to fight but stay firm. "But now I intend to return the favor!" She yells confidently and the two of them are pulled deeper until the fusions face is visible.

' _Lapis…'_

"Now…" She draws out the word, "Let's stay on this miserable planet… together!" With a final cry, they are sucked underwater. The surface of the water momentarily ripples but turns back to its peaceful state.

We all stare at the spot where our friend and enemy just disappeared too.

"Yikes. They are really bad for each other."

"Huuuaggh!" Garnets offhand comment is followed by me falling to my knees and throwing up in the sand. The others recoil in disgust but it turns to concern as a large chunk of it is stained red.

"Marcus! Are you alright? What's wrong?" Pearl asks in concern.

"C'mon, my joke wasn't that bad."

"I… I will be… alright... soon." I struggle to say as everything begins shutting off. I collapse backwards and the others scramble to make sure I'm alright.

"What do you mean 'soon'?" Amethyst asks as my breathing starts become labored.

"A… day." I manage to breathe out as all feeling in my body disappears and creeps up to my head.

"What?"Steven asks in concern.

"One day… don't worry." I say as my vision begins to blur. "Don't… worry."

My senses all shut down and I'm left in a vast unconscious state.

 **Wow, sorry people. I went overboard again in terms of this and the last page in comparison. I think I could have chunked them down some of it a bit but… nah. Sorry if the previous chapters a bit much but I guess I just wanted to give this part of the story a hell of way to go out since next is the start of a new season. Right now though I'm also trying to come up with a proper general schedule time for me to work on my chapters and with college work. Already I got the syllabus for all my classes and I'd be lying if I said I'm a little worried about the assignments. It's not about the general content of the assignments that got me worried but more so how much I have to do. Because of that, I'm gonna have to do something I've never done before when it comes to major assignments for my classes:**

 **Do it early.**

 **I am a massive procrastinator when it comes to school work and last semester I had a couple assignments I had all semester to do and I held them off till the very last second. I still did good on them but still. I can't afford to low ball it or be lazy this time around since I was freaking out a majority of the time because of the psychology tests I took. The assignments and projects I would have to do count for a good chunk of my overall grade in the classes so as long as I do good on them, and do alright in the tests, I should pass. That is to say I shouldn't test that theory so I really need to make sure that I don't screw around. I've always given myself needless stress so at this point, I really shouldn't let it. Not with the potential crap I'll have to go through. In that sense, my schedule updates may be in the general time of around a week so that may be the time to expect new chapters.**

 **With that said, I wish you all a good semester of school, and me, luck to you all in general for those of you not in school, and as always,**

 **Have fun reading.**


	43. 41 Awaken

My eyes open and I find myself staring at a ceiling. A familiar wooden ceiling to be exact as the memories of when I slept on this very couch for the majority of the time I was living with the Crystal Gems. I slowly sit up and stare at the edge of a wooden wall before tilting my head slightly to the right and seeing the temple door and warp pad.

' _This better not be a regular thing with Homeworld.'_ I think as the memories of my forced regeneration and all the events that led up to it flow through my mind again.

The sound of a plate shattering on the ground slightly surprises me. "Marcus!"

"Oof!" Someone cries out my name and barrels right into me.

"Oh we were so worried about you! We thought you had died! You had no pulse, you weren't breathing or moving or anything." Pearl hysterically lists off everything that was wrong with me when I out cold while very slightly chocking me.

"Yeah yeah I know I—"

"Garnet! Amethyst! Get out here!" She almost screams in my ear for the others to come by. No sooner does she yell that the temple door opens and both Garnet and Amethyst come running out.

"Oh hey your awake!" Amethyst points out and hugs me too with Garnet casually strolling up from behind as she stares at the clock on the wall.

"One day exactly. You were right." She comments with a smile and pats my shoulder. "Good to see you up."

"Yeah yeah sure please get off." I quickly say to the two Gems that are currently hugging me.

"Oh! Uhh, sorry." Pearl sheepishly says and lets me go finally. Amethyst smiles and let's go as well but also pats my opposite shoulder.

"Good… thanks. Uhh." I groan as my body is really sore from the abuse that transpired in barely a day or so. Well two considering I went through my regeneration process.

"You okay?" Amethyst asks me, referencing my groan and how I grab my side.

"Yep I am. Just… tired… and sore." I manage to say. After realizing my parched throat, I stand up a little wearily but I push on to the fridge. After lazily opening the door, I reach in and pull out the carton of orange juice. After tearing open the top, I immediately start drinking straight from it.

"Here let me get you a…" Pearls proposition for a glass most likely trails off as she and the others notice just how much gulping they hear from me. After half a dozen seconds of continuous drinking, the carton runs dry and I drop it in the trashcan.

"Baaaaaa. Holy crap is that heaven." I breathe out in relief and open the fridge again before taking out an apple. Immediately I take a few bites of it and eat half the apple before swallowing the solid piece of food with a satisfied groan. "Oh yeah, still good."

"Looks like you were hungry." Garnet smirks at my actions. I return the smile and lean against the counter.

"Oh you have no idea. Still am though. After I… heal… I guess, I get so hungry afterwards."

"So that's what you did on the beach?" Amethyst asks.

"Some sort of regeneration ability?" Pearl proposes as an idea and I nod.

"Yeah. From what I can tell it heals me from nearly any injury I've sustained but the offset is that I'm sent into some sort of comatose state that renders me completely unconscious and unresponsive." I give my best explanation to them on the issue.

"I'll say. You had no pulse anywhere, no heartbeat, you weren't breathing, and your eyes didn't respond to light in the least bit." Pearl lists off about me with her fingers when I was out.

"We… honestly thought you… died." Amethyst says sadly as she looks away. Pearl looks away as well while grabbing her arm.

"But then we remembered you said 'a day.' Now, we didn't know what that meant to us at the time but considering you had just healed, we gave you the benefit of the doubt and waited the day." Garnet explains. Fortunately it means my quick warning before I passed out was able to alleviate their worries about the situation and not think I was fully dead.

"Thank you then." I nod in appreciation for their patience.

"So what was that exactly? That was freaky how your skin just stitched together like that." Amethyst says in awe at the memory.

"Yeah, it was. Wasn't pleasant but it was necessary. You should have seen my arm the first time I used it."

"You were injured so bad you had to use that power before?" Pearl asks in surprise. The others have similar looks about them as well from this info.

' _Guess it's time I mentioned that.'_ I think and cross my arms. "Yeah, well… remember when I was gone for awhile because of the Iron Kings?" They nod. "Well, when they were transporting me I was able to escape by crashing the van I was in. When I came to I found my arm was trapped under the wreckage of the van with flames getting close to roasting me."

"Woah." Amethyst says.

"How did you get your arm out?" Pearl asks.

I give her a long look before staring at the arm I remember was crushed. I flex my fingers as I remember what I was forced to do. "I didn't."

* * *

After I said that, they were confused about what I meant but their confusion turned to worry and horror as I told them what I was forced to do. They asked if why I didn't mention that part to them the first time.

The answer was simple.

' _I didn't want you to worry. We already had The Iron Kings to deal with along with our usual Gem responsibilities. I didn't need you guys worrying about me anymore than what was necessary.'_ I recall the words. Needless to say, they were a bit cross with me on holding back that tidbit of information from them but as long as I was alright that everything was good.

Still, with us alright and everything, there was another problem that was presented to us that we needed rectify:

The ship.

As soon as I stepped outside, I saw the immediate problem in the form of several pieces of the ship we were on littered about the entire part of the beach and against the wall of the cliff. They already gathered a large chunk of the destroyed ship and placed it directly in front of the beach house for later disposal. Without time to lose, I immediately got started in proper disposal of the tech and material. While the Gems and I worked on salvaging computer terminals, weapons, or whatever else I can find a use for, I activated every single one of my droids and sent them out to start breaking down the ship's hull, first to get the ones that are most easily seeable from the city. Thankfully with everyone that went far out of town still returning, we were able to get a lot of the stuff put away so no one would be none the wiser. After spending a few days breaking and salvaging the stuff, moving my vehicles around to my house so they aren't in any danger of getting damaged by some fallen debris as we salvage everything, and as well as grabbing my Kevlar vest, rifle and pistols from where I lost them on the beach, people came back to town and no one was too hung up thankfully on the situation, especially since we took out most of the evidence and was currently being repurposed.

The Gems and I took most of the salvaged equipment down to where my base is going to be and started stockpiling it on top of all the other stuff I have laying around. With that said, I also spent the next few days programming my droids to start lining the walls of my eventual base with the material from the ship. If the hull of the ship was able to barely withstand a direct shot with a Javelin missile launcher as well as the other artillery strikes, plus go into and out of the atmosphere without much damage, it would be perfect for me to use as the walls and supports for my place. Eventually I might add another material to them to increase the strength of it but that's beside the point.

As the days progressed and I picked up all my weapons I left around town I… My mood had sort of plummeted in light of some information that resurfaced now that I'm not longer unconscious or dealing with any enemies. With the info I got about… mom, how easily we were beaten, and with Lapis's sacrifice, while the others are just happy that we won, especially Amethyst, I'm not. Not in the least bit.

Everything was sloppy and we were so close to losing people. We were so close to losing everything!

*Crash*

Before I realize it, my fist has gone through one of my walls. Looking at where my fist is embedded in it, I roughly pull it out; the white powder of drywall momentarily flies into the air and lingers before dissipating. One of my droids crawls up and repairs the wall as easily as they do the rest of the time. However my attention is focused as I stare at my hand.

Ever since my… transformation, my powers have… unlocked so to say. My shadow speed ability, kinetic strikes, and my area-of-effect moves have all progressed to the point that I can now do them at will. No longer concentrating or hoping the ability will activate when I need it most but now I just think and it works. The downside though, is my temper or my emotions specifically. They tend to flare in extreme points, anger mostly, and that's understandable considering everything that's dropped on me. I've spent years alone and a recluse from other people so I know how to reign my emotions in so I don't do something stupid in my blind rage. Still, I'm gonna have to be even more cautious with my emotions from now on.

"Oh, geez." I groan and slowly walk outside to clear my head from my thoughts. Night has already started to creep around Beach City so the calm night sky is already doing wonders in calming my nerves. The Gems are milling about looking for more pieces o the ship while Steven left last I saw him with Jenny and the cool kids. They didn't see me so I didn't bother going with them. Not with the issues I got to deal with. Hopefully nothing big will come by.

I was wrong.

How I'm wrong comes in the form of some freaky light show going off in the distance. "What?" I question at its odd form and how it looks. I turn back to my home as the Warp activates.

"Marcus!" Garnet yells out my name as she and the others Gems run up to me. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah I did. What was—"

"It was Peridot. That was the flare from her escape pod." Pearl informs me.

My eyes widen at the implication that she's so close. "What?!"

"But the question is why would she activate a flare when there are no other Homeworld Gems on Earth?" Pearl asks in confusion.

"Maybe she wanted to get Jasper's attention?" Amethyst offers but by then I'm gone.

"But she's trapped at the bottom of the ocean with Lapis. Then again she didn't see that happen so I wouldn't be surprised about her ignorance of their—"

*Beep*Beep*

The Gems are brought out of their contemplation as the loud car horn going off nearby. They look to finally realize I went inside my Falcon muscle car and am waiting for them. "Eh-hem! A little less talk and a little more going after her!" I yell at them. They stare at me for barely a second before nodding and getting in. Pearl and Amethyst get in but Garnet gets on the roof of my car and grips the edges.

"Go." She orders me.

"Garnet I don't think you need—" Pearl begins to protest but I don't want to waste anymore time.

Kicking my car into high gear, I drive straight down the hill and head straight for the road in the direction of the flare. The Gems grip tightly at anything they can grab because of the increased speed I'm going. I'm driving well over the speed limit and right now I don't care about being subtle, I want that Gem.

It doesn't take us long before we come upon a field where the source of the flare came from. Almost immediately, I spot a familiar looking car and its drivers and passengers running about while Peridot's spherical escape pod attacks everything around it. I press the brakes and skid to stop on the road. "I knew it! That flare led us right to the escape pod!" Pearl points out as she and Amethyst get out into the right of my car and Garnet gets off the left.

"What's going on here?!" Amethyst questions loudly to Sour Cream, Buck and Jenny running about.

"Help! Over here!" They call out to us for help.

"We'll save you, humans!" Pearl reassures them and throws her spear towards the pod. The projectile connects and we are able to see someone still inside. "I can't believe it. Peridot's still inside."

"That son of a…" I growl as I remember her part in our capture.

"She's probably weak from the landing. Don't hold back!" Garnet orders us. The others nod and ready themselves.

"Gladly." I growl in slight anger and change gears in my car. The others step back as my tires start peeling out on the pavement. Twisting the steering wheel, my car does a complete 360 before I stop it till I'm staring straight at the pod. I rev my engines a couple times before looking at Garnet. "Get on."

"What?" She asks in confusion.

"Trust me. On the roof. Spike it." She's confused at first about my words but when I say the last word, she nods, getting what I mean. She gets back on top and grips the front of the roof. "Jump when I say so." I inform her of what to do. She gives me a thumbs up through the window and grabs the window again.

With my plan firmly set in place, I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and press the gas pedal a few times, revving the engine multiple times in preparation for my attack. After the fourth rev, I change gears.

My car's tires screech loudly on the pavement as they peel out before finally getting traction and going forward. My car drives off the pavement and barely takes air as I land on the dirt ground but that doesn't stop me in the least bit to ram that bitch to hell. The others watch as I press the gas all the way down as my car heads straight towards the pod. I go pass my human friends and I faintly hear them yelling at me for something but I ignore them and head straight for a small hill that can launch me to my target. As we get closer and closer, I give her the signal. "Jump now!" I yell.

"Ha!" With a grunt, she jumps upwards high into the air. The force of her jump depresses the roof of my car a little but that doesn't deter me. The loud roar of my engine cuts through the air without the added weight as I get closer and closer until…

*CRASH*

The sound of metal and metal impacting against each other tears through the air as I hit the pod in mid-air. The front part of my car dents pretty badly from the hit and I go spinning sideways but I continue moving. As I hit the ground, I twist my car to the side, making me drift for a second before stopping all together and I look up. The escape pod is sent flying high into the air, right towards Garnet. She brings both her fists up together and slams them downwards, spiking the pod straight towards the ground similar to how we attacked that puffer fish monster back at the beach with the Pizza's.

Like at that time, the ground caves in from the force of the pod crashing into the ground. A small plume of dust and dirt kicks up where it falls but we don't let it settle. I immediately turn off my car and reach back before grabbing my AK12 in the backseat. After stepping out in a silent brood, I slam the door closed and take aim at the sphere. Without a moment's hesitation, I open fire.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*

With each press of the trigger, my rounds fly through the air and impact the glass surface of the pod. The machine gets up and tries to move but the rounds impacting against it force it to stumble back. None of my shots do any damage to it but that doesn't stop me. _'May be bullet proof. But that is never perfect in of itself.'_ With that thought in mind, I drop the current magazine and reload a fresh mag.

"Wait! Stop!"

"Get off!"

Jenny for some reason grabs me and tries to stop me for some reason but I can't stop. I gently but forcefully push her away and behind me so she doesn't interfere with me. After switching to single fire, I find the flattest part of the glass I can see and take aim again before firing. I faintly hear the others calling my name but I focus my attention on my action. This time as the rounds hit the glass, I focus my fire directly on that single part of the glass. At first the rounds bounce off but the repeated impacts in the same spot over and over again quickly starts depressing the glass from the abuse. The others get into position around the pod as my assault continues against it. Once half the magazine is empty, the glass caves in horribly and threatens to break. "Almost there… almost there." I mutter as I steady myself one more time before firing once again.

*Chink*

I smile as the glass finally gives and my round goes right through the glass. A green liquid starts pouring from the hole for some reason but I don't care about that.

*Click*

"Damn." I mutter as the trigger clicks empty. I check myself for some more ammo but I only had the one extra mag. "I'm out!" I call out to the others and toss my weapon away.

"Amethyst!"

"Got it!" Amethyst replies from Garnets order and whips the pod. Her whip wraps around the pod, keeping it in place.

"You got a lotta nerve taking refuge here. Of all places!" Garnet menacingly says as she grabs Amethyst's whip and starts pulling the pod closer to her. "But I don't know where you get off attacking defenseless humans in your dead-beat escape pod." She continues to pull the pod closer to her while the occupant inside starts freaking out. _'She better. She's got a lot of hell to deal with.'_ I think grimly as I move closer to back Garnet up in case of anything. "And if you think you're safe here, well I got news for you. You lost! Now!" Her voice gets higher as the pod is now within touching distance and she readies her gauntlet.

I grin as she's about to attack. "Oof!" I grunt as someone pushes me from behind. Quickly looking up, I see that its Jenny that pushed me down and I running straight for Garnet and the pod. _'What the hell is she doing?'_ I think in confusion as she runs.

"Stay off my planet!" She shouts and punches forward.

"GARNET STOP!"

"Stop!" Garnet's punch stops within an inch of obliterating Jenny's head. My heart is beating a million miles a minute as the stupid girl came so close to dying. _'What the fuck is wrong with her?!'_ I think angrily in my head as I stalk up to them, prepared to give her hell. "Steven's in there." She breathes out.

"… What?" I ask in confusion. As Garnet and I look through the glass, the silhouetted person becomes clear. "God damn… Rah!"

*CHINK*

In a fuel of anger and worried, I punch the hole I made earlier from my gun. The glass cuts my hand and arm but its insignificant as I fold my arm and pull. The glass tears off the pod and the rest of the liquid substance flows out in a sticky mess. "Steven!" Both Amethyst and Pearl call out the kids name in worry as they finally see who it is.

"What were you doing?"

"You found Peridot's escape pod and you didn't come get us immediately?!"

"Dude we almost wrecked you."

"Steven, this is unacceptable. I'm very disappointed in you."

Amethyst, Pearl and Garnet ask him about his actions as they help him out of the pod. My mind on the situation however is far from the others as I can or the situation in general as I spot something on the back wall of the pod.

While Sour Cream, Buck and Jenny come over to Steven, the rest of the world falls silent to me as I let the glass window on my arm fall to the ground in a quiet thud. I walk past the others silently as I see something that makes a rock drop to the pit of my stomach.

The bullet.

The bullet I worked so hard trying to get to pierce through the glass and when I did, I missed.

I have never been so happy to have missed a shot than I am right now. In a sigh of massive guilt, I lean my hands on the edge of the pod where the glass once was, placing all my weight on it as a massive weight falls on my shoulders.

"Marcus?"

* * *

"Marcus?" The person in question doesn't react to his name being called by his brother. While everyone was getting ready for a selfie, they noticed that someone was missing from their little group. It didn't take long for them to see him looking intently at the escape pod that Steven was in a while ago that was unintentionally destroying nearly everything around them all. Even when Jenny and Sour Cream asked for him to come by, he didn't respond at all. Now Steven is standing next to him away from the others and looking at him with a worried look. "Are you… okay?"

"…" There is a long moment of silence after Steven asks the question that makes him even more worried for what he's thinking. Just when he's about to leave, "Why… did you get in Steven?" He asks the kid.

"I… I don't… really know. Peridot wasn't around anywhere and the others thought I needed to relax so I just… got in." He hesitates in answering. Giving a full description for his reasons for getting in the pod doesn't sound very good when spoken out loud. What makes him confused is the low chuckle Marcus gives off at the bad excuse that Steven admits wasn't perfect.

"That… was stupid. You getting inside this was probably one of the most stupidest decisions you could have possibly made." He tells the kid in a low grim tone. Steven's mood visibly deflates as each word makes him feel even worse than when the Gems were berating him for getting in it. "You wanna know why?" He asks. Steven looks up as Marcus leans into the pod and grabs something. With barely a grunt of effort, Marcus simply pulls out the bullet embedded in the back part of the pod and examines it closely. The bullet is grossly deformed from the impact on the glass and hitting the wall but it no doubt had a veritable amount of force behind it despite the first obstacle. Enough to hurt, severely maim, or possibly kill a child like Steven.

This very thought is what's been circling through his head over and over again when he saw Steven inside the target he was trying to destroy. "That's…?" Steven begins to question but his words fall short.

Marcus nods his head. "It is. It so very is and do you have any idea how close this was to hitting you?" He asks him, his voice just barely getting higher in pitch.

"Uhhh—"

"Steven." He says the hesitant kids name firmly while looking directly at him. He brings the bullet right up to his face so he can see it. "Look at this. This was almost for you!" He almost yells at him in slight anger.

"But I—"

"Steven!" He shouts the kids name and throws the infernal round far away. "Do you not understand what I'm saying?! I almost killed you!" He shouts.

The others that were standing away from the two of them flinch but as they hear Marcus say that, their moods shift.

"Getting in that thing was the most idiotic move you could have possibly done especially since everything we've been through in the past week alone!" He yells at the kid, who is starting to get fearful of the massive outburst and anger flowing off his brother, especially since this is the most he's seen him angry at him.

"What is he doing? Everything is fine so why—" Jenny begins to say but before she can go over and defend Steven since this was actually her and the cool kids fault, Garnet places a hand on her shoulder to stop her from going. She looks up at the Gems emotionless face as she continues to stare at the scene before them.

"We came so close to everything! Losing everyone we cared about and because of this we almost-…! I… almost…" Marcus's anger starts to diminish at the reminder of what he almost did overrides his anger into that of fear… and sadness. "I was… so close to…" His words start to sway and he seems unbalanced. He turns away from both Steven and the pod, before placing his back against the pod and sliding down. As soon as he hits the ground, he stares off into space for a few moments before curling up with his knees to his chest.

Steven stares at his brother until he moves closer and places a hand on his arm in comfort. "Marcus I'm… I'm so sorry. I had no idea that…"

"I can't lose you." He hears Marcus muffled reply. "I have no one else Steven. This last week is a perfect example of how easy it can be for us to lose… and how I can be just as dangerous to you and the others like Homeworld if I'm not careful." He slowly brings his head up, allowing the person of his protection to see the tears flowing down his face. "We already lost Lapis. I can't lose anyone else." Slowly he uncurls himself and brings his arms up to his head, pressing his hands to his head. "It's one thing that she gave up herself to protect us like that when I was hurt so bad and I couldn't do anything to help it was also another that it was Jasper that nearly destroyed Garnet but my mind is trying to process the idea if I hurt you and what would happen and I can't I can't I can't I can—"

Steven places a hand on his shoulder, stopping his ranting in its place and preventing him from freaking out and having a nervous breakdown. Marcus looks up from the ground to his brother to see him giving a smile of comfort. "She's not gone. She's just holding Jasper for us." The words do a little to alleviate Marcus's mood but he isn't done there. His comforting smile turns to one of guilt. "I'm sorry I got in this thing. I promise I won't do anything like that again." His look turns back to the comfort. "The Gems have already thought of ideas on how we can go look for Lapis in the ocean. If you're this sad and beat up over seeing her gone like this, I'm sure you can come up with gadgets or some cool robots to help look for her in the ocean." He proposes to him with an upbeat attitude.

"… You… you really think so?" Marcus hesitantly asks.

Steven nods with his smile still on his face. "I'm sure. I've seen you come up with way crazier stuff and I'm positive you can come up with something that could help."

For awhile, Marcus just stares at the kid and it doesn't look like his words have an affect but he smiles and lets out a low chuckle. "I… guess I could do that… instead of beating myself up."

"There you go. Oof!" Steven begins to agree with the idea but Marcus surprises him with a hug, which he promptly returns.

"I always thought I and the Gems were ones that were supposed to protect. Turns out you're the one protecting me." He mutter loud enough only for them two to hear.

"We protect each other." Steven tells him, letting him know that he shouldn't be the one to shoulder everything that's bad. He's got friends to help.

* * *

As I hold Steven close, his hands patting me in the hug to comfort me, I can't help but chuckle in my head. _'He he… guess I… wasn't as careful as I thought.'_

 **Alright, nothing too big or crazy here folks and it seems like I kind of needed a break from this considering the previous set of chapters I've been working on. This was kind of dragged out in terms of writing it but I want you guys to understand that this may be the norm for just a little while. I got a couple exams and a essay due in a couple weeks so that's at the forefront of my mind. There is one other thing I've want to bring up with you all and it's that I'm also thinking of starting another story already. I don't know if it's because I'm getting a little tired of constantly working on Steven Universe, I'm anxious and worried about my classes for college, or it's the binge watch episodes I've been watching for the last few weeks, but that's what I'm thinking.**

 **I've been watching episodes of Transformers Prime for the last few week or so and I've already come up with ideas for the OC in that story. Honestly I have no idea if this is an in the moment type thing or what but tell me it's something that you all are alright with eventually or not. You know when I first saw the show I thought it was going to be something like the rest of the transformers series but I was dead wrong. The show has a surprisingly dark element to it and I love it.**

 **There is also one other thing I've realized I love playing: For Honor. I got access and have been playing the closed Beta all the way through it was able to be played. Holy crap people I absolutely loved playing the beta and I will most likely buy the game when it comes out. The way how the combat moves, it flows, the way you can counteract your enemies attack and surprise them in so many ways is absolutely wonderful. Shooters are all well and good but man does the actual melee combat make things so much more badass and awesome in a way I could never have imagined. It does take some skill, patience, and precision in order to take on the more badass or even then probably the average type of players because you'd be surprised at the type of moves people come up with or take advantage of to really wreck in the most colossal of ways. For those of you that probably played the beta, I will say that my favorite class is the Orochi with the Nobushi being the second. Can't wait to play the full thing and to see what other classes they give us. The Lawbringer looks nice too.**

 **With that said, I'll end it here. Remember I'm always still contemplating ideas for a new story so whatever show, movie, anime whatever you think would be best just pitch it.**

 **RWBY is also an option too. I've already got ideas for weapons and story background and everything for the OC but that remains to see when I put it into words.**

 **Oh and I just want you all to know that the new Steven bomb is awesome. Already the new episodes have given me ideas on what to do, how to proceed and how everything should go forth you know. I'm curious about what other stuff they'll give. Also, from February 10, 2017, new weekly episodes are gonna return. Every Friday a new episode is gonna air for our enjoyment so that's something to look forward to.**

 **As always, have a good day and have fun reading.**


	44. 42 Reformed

Thanks to Steven. I'm no longer feeling as… crappy as I was before. Seeing as he's got my back, I feel more at ease despite all the info I got from Jasper. While I still feel like crap, I'm not gonna let it revolve around my life. With that said I've also decided to drown myself so to say in my work and fixing up, well… everything.

It's not a perfect plan but it makes progress.

My base is coming along nicely and the place is massive with plenty of room for me to work on projects and as well as come up with contingency plans. Walls are starting to go up to signify what goes where so I allocated those things. Tech and salvageable equipment I got from the ship go in one room for me to work on later as to what I can do with it. Among those salvaged are containers that have items inside them but I won't know what they have until I open them. Until then, I'm focusing more on what I have now. I've already got the forges set up that I stole from The Iron Kings so I can work on various metal works in my free time. I've got ammo presses set up so I can make my own bullets, the replicator locked away right next to it so I can use it to make ammo, as well as workbenches to work and modify on anything I can. Another room is filled with a plethora of my or weapons that I salvaged from the kings that I dubbed the armory. The room next to it is where I've got the idea to work on anything that is possibly broken and to fix them. Some of my personal equipment is in need of repair considering the abuse they went through since I met Steven and the Gems but I also need to tune up the salvaged weapons as well, especially the ones that I took from the Kindergarten.

* * *

After sometime of working on everything without much rest, my dreams and possibly my mental capacity really started to take a hit. I had a freaky dream where this guy came by the house and was 'helping' Steven try to summon his shield more. Naturally, when a guy randomly comes by and claims to help Steven summon his mystical shield that raised some red flags and the Gems and I worked to get the guy away. Somehow he started breaking fourth wall stuff and that's when my head started hurting.

I gotta relax more, like Steven and the cool kids kept saying. I guess there is something to that.

Anyway despite my descent into madness, things still progressed somewhat alright for everyone, except Garnet. Turns out someone had an admirer.

* * *

" _Wait wait wait wait… say that again?" I ask Steven and Connie. They just told me something weird but I couldn't really comprehend it._

" _Jaime is in love with Garnet!"_

" _And we need to figure out a way to let him down easy so he doesn't get hurt!"_

 _Steven and Connie both tell me outright what the situation is. I stare at them for a few seconds trying to come up with a valid response but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me considering the person involved._

" _Jaime… the mailman… is in love with Garnet?" I reiterate what they said into a question. They nod. "In love… with Garnet?" They nod again. I stare at them for a bit before looking to the side and back at them. "This Gem right here?" The two of them look as I point my thumb to the purple and red gem standing right next to us._

" _Yes!" They confirm my disbelief that I am still trying to figure out what's going on._

 _Again, I stare at them blankly, my look shifting from the kids, to Garnet, and back again. The idea of it all just seems… wow. "Why?"_

 _*Smack*_

* * *

First Pearl, now Garnet? Geez I wonder who's going to develop a crush on Amethyst now.

In any case, my head was hurting and I had a headache for a few days after considering she slapped me upside the head with her gauntlet covered hand. My choice of words weren't the best I'll be honest, but c'mon. A person as… detached or cold like Garnet doesn't seem like the type that catches a lot of eyes.

And those poems? Wow.

In the end though, Garnet was able to let him down easy, somewhat, and things returned back to normal. Although it was a pain having to trudge through the water to gather all that mail Jaime threw in the water. And then coming up with a way to dry it all with the least amount of damage done to the contents and coming up with an excuse for any disgruntled customers.

We agreed that we would blame a rain storm that happened in another town over when the letter was in transit.

Now though, things are pretty quiet and as usual I kind of hope for a day where things don't turn upside down for us.

And as usual, I'm wrong on this day.

* * *

"Well, that should be enough for today." I comment as I finish setting up the last of my forge. I smile at the idea of making some weapons in the future. I look around the room and smile again as my droids continue to work on making the walls for my place. "Perfect." With fatigue starting to set in, and because I don't feel doing anything more, I decide to let my droids do what they're doing and head over to Gems and see how their fairing.

As I go through the Warp and end up in the beach house, "Hey Steven! Is there any more engine oil? I need it for the sandwich."

"What?" I blanch out at Amethysts request.

"I think that's for cars…" Steven tells her as he walks in.

"Well, is there any more of it?" She asks again as she kicks the fridge door closed and carries an armful of food.

"That's… not… healthy." I say the sentence slowly. However I look at my shoulder for a second before turning back and sighing. "I guess you can afford to be unhealthy when you're an all powerful Gem creature from space." I comment as I walk over to the two.

"Dad's probably got some outside." He tells her as I sit on a stool. "Oh! But uh… you guys gotta take this online quiz!" He tells us enthusiastically as he pulls out his phone and shows us the screen. "Which Crying Breakfast Friend Are You?"

"That's show's really weird."

"Yeah it kind of is." I agree with Amethyst as she places all the food items she got onto the breakfast bar. Seriously a show that's primarily about food that's sad? It's no wonder it makes me depressed.

"Who wants to watch a cartoon about people crying?" She asks.

"I do." He answers with watery eyes and what sounds like a broken voice.

She stares at him before turning to me for an answer. "Hey, just indulge him. It's not like he's asking you to do something strenuous." I point out with a hand wave.

"Okay, okay! Uh, what's the first question?" She caves and asks.

"Do you ever act without thinking?" He asks while reading from his phone.

"Nope. Never."

Her statement is completely contradicted by the fact that she just squeezed a bottle of mustard and it popped and splattered all of its contents on the food she brought… and my face.

"Marcus?"

"Issue here." I reply to Steven's mention of my name and calmly get up before walking over in the general direction of the sink. The mustard covered my entire face and already my eyes are starting to burn. As I feel around, I finally grab the faucet, turn it on and run my face under the cool watery stream. For a little bit that's all I here, just the running water as it breaks away the chunks of mustard and flows down the drain so I'm kind of tuned out from Steven and Amethyst's interview. Once I finish rubbing the condiment off my face, I grab a clean dish towel and dry my face off.

Once I'm done, I look back to see that my friends are gone. "Garnet, wha—" I hear Amethyst pipe up in surprise. Looking past the kitchen, I see them inside Amethyst's room in the temple. "What are you doing in my room?" She asks the fusion.

"I saw a corrupted Gem." She says, raising some red flags in my head immediately. Without a second thought, I grab the SMG I have strapped under the counter and a kitchen knife before shadow moving towards the door just before it closes. I come in right behind them without too much trouble. Amethyst and Steven are staring at Garnet and she doesn't seem to care about my action. "You're getting good at that."

"I try." I comment, which surprises Steven and Amethyst because of my sudden appearance but calm down soon after. "So what's going on?"

"Yeah, where did it come from?" Steven asks.

"It's similar to Pearl's description of the creature she saw slinking through the temple." She calmly explains to us as I take a look around. Besides my mom's memory room thing, this is probably the only time I've actually been inside the temple since the others rooms are kind of code locked or something to Gems gems. Still, Amethyst's room is kind of a large mess, filled a plethora of junk that I'm sure would put a dump or landfill to shame.

"You saw The Slinker!?" Steven says in somewhat a shocked and excited tone.

"The what?" I ask.

"I thought we agreed there was no Slinker, and we weren't going to call it The-Slinker." Amethyst ignores my question and does air quotes over 'The Slinker.'

"Yes we did." Garnet agrees with her as she crosses her arms. "But now it's undeniable the creature exists, and that Steven's name stuck." She tells us as her arms uncross and we begin walking.

"Yes!" Steven pumps his fist in happiness at apparently naming a monster.

"Nooo!" Before we can get far, Amethyst moves in front of Garnet and stops her from moving. "Look, why don't you just let me look for it?" She proposes as she walks behind Garnet.

However the fusion won't have it. "Because you won't." She bluntly tells the purple Gem and walks past her.

"She's not wrong." I agree with Garnet and walk to catch up to the fusion. "Sorry." I momentarily apologize to her and move just behind Garnet with the others moving behind me. With the Mac-10 in my right hand and knife in the left, I adopt the Harries Flashlight technique again so I can be on my toes in case The Slinker decides to attack. With the amount of junk Amethyst has here, there are plenty of places for it to hide then attack. Soon we make it to a large pile of junk on the ground and Garnet lifts it with relative ease, revealing another large tunnel. I crouch next to the tunnel and look down at the large massive hole leading downwards. "Jeez, The Slinker made this?" I question as I run my fingers along the edge of the sheered hole.

"How long's this thing been in here?" Steven asks behind. _'I could ask the same thing.'_

"Ah! Ha ha, look, guys!" Amethyst suddenly pipes up and dives for something in another pile. As she comes out, she's wearing a gas mask. "I'm a pachyderm!" Her muffled voice says. Her action causes Steven to have a nice laugh and me to smirk and shake my head. "Oh! And there's a prize inside!"

"Ngh!" I let out a strangled choke as I see the item she pulls out. Letting my gun and knife drop to the ground, I quickly swipe the skull away from her. It bounces a little in my hands but I manage to catch it firmly. I give a nervous laugh and smile for my mysterious action for my friends. "He he he, uhhh. That's great Amethyst. I'll just uhh… be taking this, and this." I grab the mask from her hands as well before bringing both it and the skull of its previous user in my arms.

She looks at me annoyed and is about to protest but a loud hissing is heard somewhere. "Sshhhh, keep quiet." Garnet immediately shuts down any sort of argument that's about to take place between us. Amethyst is annoyed by it but nods nonetheless along with Steven.

As the three of them start walking off, I look at the skull in my hand. "I'm so sorry." I carefully place the skull down near the door before looking at the mask in my hands with a smile. "Hello rebreather." I quietly say and place it next to the skull. Next I quickly bolt forward and grab my weapons before catching up to the others.

Again, we are bathed in silence at the deafness of the area around us as we move further into Amethyst's room and unfortunately, The Slinker is silent once more. As we walk by another pile, Garnet places down the junk pile she was holding and doesn't stop walking. "Oh Garnet, stern but practical, just like Spilled Milk." Steven for some reason pipes up with some form of admiration in his voice.

"Is that from your quiz thing?" I ask him. He nods with a smile. _'Okay good. Because if he was literally talking about spilled milk, I don't know how it would be classified as stern and practical.'_ I think and look around for anything suspicious.

"You're still not on about that dumb cartoon are you?" Amethyst says, visibly annoyed about it.

"Oh right, the quiz!" Unfortunately he remembers what we were doing earlier before we came into the temple and pulls out his phone again. "Do you get defensive when people ask you questions about the feelings you prefer to keep hidden?" He asks as he walks closer to her. I move with him for his safety.

I don't know what it is but whatever my brother said suddenly has her on the defensive. "DON'T get all psych-o-logical on me, Ste-ven." She almost snarls. _'Woah, what happened there?'_

"Uhhh… sorry?" His apology comes out as a question since it looks like he's confused by her hostility.

With the shake of my head, I move around, examining my environment of any sign of The Slinker. Then again I don't have a description of so the only thing I have to go on is its name, Slinker. "Hitting a bit close to home?" I mutter right next to Amethyst as I pass her. I chuckle a little at her angry stare.

*Smack*

"Ow! Okay sorry for screwing with you." I grunt as I look back to Amethyst after she hit me in the back of my head.

"What?" She asks in confusion.

I look at her weirdly. "You hit me. So I assume it was because of what I said. So I'm sorry." I apologize again.

Now she's the one that looks confused. "I didn't hit you."

I stare at her confused and look to Steven for answers. He nods, agreeing with Amethyst. "But if you didn't, then— Raaah!" I yell as I'm suddenly pulled off my feet. I land face first on the ground and my knife leaves my hand. My friends look confused at me but we don't have time to question as I'm suddenly pulled.

* * *

"MARCUS!" Steven and Amethyst cry out their friends name as he is suddenly sucked into a pile of junk and out of their sight.

"What's wrong?!" Garnet quickly moves over to them and asks.

"The Slinker got Marcus!" Steven cries out in worry as he grabs his head.

"Oh no! Where did he—" Garnet begins to say but the staccato sound of gunfire interrupts her.

All three of them look in the direction of the shots to see a massive form dashing through the room, dragging another smaller form behind it. The small form lets out a series a repeated gunfire shots at what's dragging it but the thing is jerking him around too much.

"There!" Garnet points to where The Slinker is heading and jumps forward before aiming her arms to the pile of junk. Just as it enter the pile, she fires her gauntlets toward the creature. Her gauntlets rocket through the air and impact the massive pile of junk with devastating force. Bits and pieces of the junks pile goes all over the place and rains down on them. When the explosion dissipates, Garnet runs over the pile, smiling at the thought that The Slinker was destroyed. She frowns however as she doesn't find the creatures Gem. With a grimace, she begins sifting through the pile for something else.

"WHOA MAMA!" Amethey yells in amazement at the explosion her friend caused so easily. "Did ya get it!?" She asks as she looks up at the fusion with excitement in her voice.

"No." Garnet answers while still looking through the pile.

A hand busts through the pile, surprising them all. The arm pushes itself off the top most part of the junk pile and pushes down. "Ngh." Marcus groans as the rest of him is pulled out of the junk pile he was nearly dragged into. His body is covered in several scrapes and bruises from being dragged but their only flesh wounds. "Ow." He grunts from the abuse his body went through and tries to get up. Garnet sends her gauntlets away and extends a hand to the human. He takes it with a smile and is easily pulled p out of the pile. He calms I breathing a little before looking at his friends. "You got something Garnet."

"Sorry." She apologizes to him for almost hitting him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, uhhgh." He groans as he moves his right arm back and forth to make sure nothing is out of place, his hand still clutching the SMG. "A little battered but nothing I can't shake off and get a good night's rest." Steven walks up to him and holds something out. Marcus looks down and sees its his knife that he dropped. With a smile, he grabs it. "Thanks man." He thanks his brother as he pats his heads and walks off the pile.

"Aw man," Amethyst groans as she jumps in and starts rummaging through the pile of junks that was subsequently destroyed. "I think my favorite round thing was in there."

"Oh yeah sure. The round thing is more important than my health." Marcus grumbles as he walks away.

* * *

I'm not really angry with Amethyst. We did kind of break a good chunk of her stuff. Right now I just want to find this damn Slinker for dragging me on the ground for several dozen feet or so. That was not a pleasant experience whatsoever.

"Where are you?" I question out loud as I look around the place for any sign of The Slinker.

*Poof*

A sound I am particularly familiar with that I absolutely loathe cuts through the air. I turn tail and head straight back to where my friends are. I jump over a small pile of junk and move over to my friends. To my dismay, Steven is holding a purple Gem.

"Don't worry. She'll be back before you know it." I hear Garnet say, although I'm still a little angry that one of my friends has been nearly destroyed.

"Seriously? That's sort of what you said with Pearl and she took—!" Before I can continue my rant, the gem in Steven's hand starts to glow and suspend into the air. "Ten seconds?" I comment in confusion at the near non-existent time it took for her to start coming back. Similar to when they shapeshift, Amethyst's form starts to take shape before she's back just like how she was before, at least until Steven hugs her.

"Amethyst's back! Amethyst's back!" He happily says and hugs her.

She grunts as she pushes Steven aside from his hug but that's when we see the difference. "Huh?" She groans in confusion as we see the improvement, or problem, depending on how you see it.

She has feet for hands.

"Looks like you... grew a few feet since the last time I saw you, nyuck-nyuck-nyuck!"

"Annnnnd I'm out." I announce at Steven's horrible joke and start walking away, my previous anger completely gone. _'This is gonna be one of those days.'_

* * *

After finding what looks like a new recently dug hole in the side of her room, I move on ahead away from my friends to be ready in case that thing attacks. Since the tunnel is only a two way, then The Slinker only has two directions it can go to ambush us. I got the front while they have my back.

Plus I'm also ahead of the others to avoid the lashing Garnet is going to give Amethyst. The somewhat disappointed or cautious look she was giving the recently reformed Gem could tell she was not happy with her additions.

*Crash*

"Son of a—" At the loud crash of rubble behind me, I turn back to be met with a small cloud of dirt. It easily dissipates and I see Garnet and Steven looking down a new hole. "Damn." I curse myself as I punch the wall at my lack of information I failed to take into account. _'This thing dug the holes. Of course it would make new ones through the ones it already dug.'_

"Amethyst?" Steven says the missing Gems name. Garnet grabs the kid and the three of us jump down. Just as I hit the ground, I roll forward and aim my gun around us while holding the knife close to my chest, ready to strike. The creature is nowhere to be seen. I'll give it credit, it's not like the others we met, and commend it for its hit-and-run tactics.

That doesn't mean though that I'm not going to completely tear through its form with a somewhat satisfying smile on my face.

"Amethyst's gem!" I look over at Steven to see him holding the gem again. "She got 'poofed' again!" He cries out.

"Crap that thing is crafty." I mutter as Amethyst is yet again sent into her gem. Now though, as much as I hate it, I guess I'm getting used to this in the sort thing. Chances are, as long as their gems are okay and they can still come back, I'll be pissed but not go on a rage spree like with Pearl and Garnet.

"This is a good opportunity for her, now she can make a better form."

"We can hope." I agree with Garnet. It was short but I wasn't too privy to the whole four leg thing. "Hopefully she'll take her time and figure something out that's better than and she's coming back." Garnet and I are completely wrong in our assumptions as Amethyst's gem starts glowing and floating into the air again.

"She's coming back!" Steven exclaims happily at the idea that she's coming back so quickly.

"Hmm." Garnet and I however are a little indifferent on the matter. Like before she starts glowing and her form takes shape. This time though, her new form is a bit more… obvious.

"Yeah right, this is much better!"

Now, this seems pretty absurd. She is now trying to copy Pearl's look and everything. Her hair is waaay longer than it needs to be, her shoes are too short and not filled out, and her clothing doesn't match.

"She's doing Pearl!" Steven happily points out but Garnet and I just facepalm and sigh at how ridiculous she's kind of being right now.

* * *

"Hey Garnet, what do you think of my new look, Garnet? I'm more like Pearl now! Isn't it wonderful? Ha! I feel... practically perfect!"

"Mm!" I groan in slight annoyance as Amethyst tries to mimic Pearl's elegant twirl move and instead smacks all three of us with her freakishly long hairdo. Even so, we continue to move forward in search of The Slinker.

"We need to focus on listening for the creature." Garnet warns the flamboyant Gem of what our current objective is.

"Oh, but I can't focus, all these rocks are different sizes, we'll have to organize them by shape and color. Didn't anyone tell nature how I want it to look?" Amethyst tries to imitate Pearl. Steven finds it funny though as he giggles.

"Don't encourage her." Garnet tells him.

"Please." I add.

"But I need encouragement, Garnet! I need everyone's constant approval, I need to loquaciously converse so I can show off how smart I am."

"Ugh." With a groan I move forward a little faster to get away from her. While Steven and I are behind us, I walk with Garnet. "What's with her?" I whisper.

"I don't know. I'm not sure what brought this up and frankly it's starting to get a little out of hand."

"Completely entirely!"Amethyst pipes up behind us. We stop and turn back to her and Steven's conversation.

"Oh wow, you're so method. Next time, can you come back as me?"

Garnet lets out a sigh and looks to me, "Can look around a bit while I deal with this?"

With a nod, I bring both my weapons up and scout around for The Slinker. Already I can hear the beginning of their talking starting to turn into arguing, especially with how loud Amethyst is being. Moving to the right, I scout around some more junks piles and instead of going forward away from my friends, I instead decide to circle around and do a sweep around my friends so we don't get jumped.

My hunch is correct.

Several feet in front of me I see a large writhing black mass huddled behind another junk pile. _'Gotcha.'_ I smile and take aim, ready to unload and tear through it.

"So what, I'm not strong enough?" Amethyst's outburst shifts my focus. To my surprise I'm actually just to their left and they appear to be angry. Something starts moving to—

"Amethyst look out!" I shout at her to warn her but it's too late. The mass of tentacles from The Slinker grabs her and pulls her back.

"Amethyst!" Steven shouts in worry for her.

"Are you saying I'm weak?!" She yells back for some reason just before she is pulled past the junk pile.

"Damn!" I grit my teeth and aim again at the thing. The painful familiar poofing sound happens again and the cloud of smoke covers the creature. I open fire into the smoke to hopefully hit it. I hear sounds of pain come from the creature but as the smoke disappears, so is The Slinker. "Grr." I growl at its escape attempt again before heading to the others. I see Steven laying on the ground with Amethyst's gem laying in his outstretched hands. "You two okay?" I ask them.

"We're fine." Garnet answers.

"Is it weird I'm getting numb to this?" Steven asks looking back to us.

"Mmmm not really. I'm kind of in the same boat as you man." I say with a shoulder shrug. He looks sad at seeing her gone again so I try to comfort him. "Don't worry." I say kneeling down next to him and patting his back. "She'll be back. She has been the last couple of- SLINKER!" I interrupt myself as I see the thing crawling into one of the tunnels. In a flash, I am completely gone from Steven's side and am pursuing our target.

"Marcus!" I hear my friends call out to me but I'm determined to capture this thing.

* * *

The Slinker is heading back to Amethyst's room and before I know it, I'm carefully scouting around, being as quiet as I can so I can hear this thing coming. It already got the drop on Amethyst and I several times now and since I'm alone, chances are it will focus on me.

A hissing is heard to my right.

"Gotcha!" I roll forward just as several tentacles lunge at the spot I was just at. I bring mu gun up to bear and spray the origin where they are coming from.

*Hissing*

Some of my rounds manage to hit their mark in the pile, making the creature let out a god-awful screeching hissing noise and recoil its appendages. As I run out of ammo, I drop the magazine and quickly reload a new one but it manages to snare my leg again. "Guh!" I grunt as I am dropped onto my back again with my gun falling out of my hand. This time though, I use my now free hand and punch the ground and dig my fingers into the dirt in a claw like fashion. It tries to pulls me but I remain rooted to my spot. "Not this time!" I yell defiantly and swipe the knife at the tentacle. The Slinker screeches as I cut the appendage several time before it finally lets me go and retracts. More of its tentacles bust out from the same pile of junk into the air and prepares to impale me from above. Planting my hands on the ground, I kick myself off it. I do several front flips forward, grabbing my gun along the way, as the tentacles impact where I last was several times as I move. Once the last one hits, I land and slide back on my feet before firing once again.

Again, The Slinker hisses angrily as I hit its appendages with my bullets. As they retract, everything goes silent.

"Alright, no more games." I reload and look around for it. I fast walk around the various junk piles in hopes of catching this thing before it can properly recover. The amount of damage I did to it may seem somewhat small but it's a lot more than when we first started. My searching however halts as I hear some loud grunting and rustling behind another junk pile. "Gotcha!" I yell and run up the pile before jumping off the top. "Raaaah!" I yell and bring my knife down to stab.

Something grabs me in mid-air but that doesn't stop from aiming my gun directly at— "Marcus!"

"Amethyst?" I say the Gems name in a confusing manner as she somehow manages to grab me with one hand easily. "Your back and… what happened to you?" I ask in confusion at her unique appearance.

"Yeah I'm back!" She happily says and places me down on the ground with her overly large hand. "And I got an upgrade! Whatcha' think?" She asks as she flexes in front of me.

As I stare at the mismatched form she has taken, I can't really see a full proof logical reason why. "An… upgrade? But… why did…?" I trail off.

He happy demeanor turns to one of sadness, then anger. "You don't like it either? What's wrong with you guys?! Garnet said I needed to be stronger and this is what I am!" She yells in my face.

"Stronger?" I ask in confusion at the mismatched symmetry of her body. "Amethyst, you sacrificed strength for balance. Do you not know how stupid that is! Especially since you've been nearly killed by this thing a few times as it is already!" I berate her with my voice slightly increasing in volume. "We don't need some macho bravdo crap!" I shout at her, anger starting to rise at how irresponsible she's being.

"I needed to be stronger in order to beat that thing!" She yells and swipes her giant fist to our side, completely bashing a junk pile away from us. "Now that I am and you goes don't accept that!"

' _Grrr! So stubborn and its going to get her and the rest of us kill—'_ My thoughts are interrupted as I see something to my left.

"Why don't you just tell me what I—!"

"Look out!" Before she can finish, her rant, I push her out of the way of The Slinker's attack. "Argh!" I grunt in pain as the creatures tentacle swipes me directly in my chest, sending me flying back through the air. Before I can right myself in the air, I pass by Steven and Garnet before I impact something hard and everything goes black.

* * *

"Gah!" I shout as I sit up.

"Whoa Marcus careful!" I immediately recognize Pearl's voice as she stops me from moving too much.

"Pearl! The others! What happened?" I frantically say as I grab her shoulders.

"Yo." Looking away from her, I look over to see the others sitting at the breakfast bar counter nonchalantly.

"Guys!" I get up and walk halfway to them. "Your okay!" I say happily at seeing them all unharmed. "And your… different Amethyst." I begin to say as I finally take in her new appearance. "Looks good."

"Thanks." She smiles and takes a bit out of a sandwich.

"So what happened, exactly?" I ask to no one in particular.

"The Slinker got away," Amethyst says in an annoyed tone.

"But you an Amethyst are alright," Steven adds.

"And someone learned a valuable lesson." Garnet finishes with a smile directed at the new purple gem, who blushes at the attention.

"Ahhh, okay cool. 'Nough said." I reply with a nod and head over to the fridge before grabbing a soda. As I pull the tab open I remember one other thing. "Wait, what happened to me? I remember blacking out after I saved your butt from The Slinker." I say with a head nod towards Amethyst.

She looks down sheepishly at the memory. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"You hit a wall."

I stare ate Garnet from her answer. "Just… a wall?" She nods. "I hit a wall and that was it?"

"Pretty much." She shrugs her shoulders.

I look over at each person and they all shrug as well. "Alright then." I chug my drink.

 **Not every chapter ends in a cliffhanger people. Hope you understand.**

 **This is a bit simplified and I had to kind of shorten this from its original form and I apologize for that. As I said before people, expect these long various time frames between chapters while I'm still taking my classes. I'll also be playing games like For Honor (which is awesome by the way) and Halo Wars 2.**

 **However for those of you who are following this story but not me as the author, and if you still want to see more, click on my name on top and you'll see not one but two other stories I'm beginning to write. If your too lazy to see what I'm working with, it's the Transformers: Prime fic, 'The Human Element' and a RWBY fic, 'A Grimm's Handler', with a possible Inuyasha and Ghost in the Shell one in the works.**

 **That's not to say however that I'm putting 'A Tale of A Jade' on hiatus. I'll be working on all my stories as time progresses and work either on several them in one day or focus on one. Steven Universe is kind of getting stale on me and I'm looking for more variety but I will not stop, I will assure you of that.**

 **Whether you guys support this idea or not, well that remains to be seen. I love doing all of this, never get me wrong in that regard, but it just sucks working on other real life stuff. That is my top priority but I'll at least reserve some time for my hobby.**

 **With that said, I'll leave you guys to your daily lives and have fun reading.**


	45. 43 Keeping It Together

After The Slinker fiasco, which is still at large by the way, much to my annoyance, things were relatively quiet for the next couple of weeks without much hassle. Unfortunately that meant that it was time for 'us' to make a hassle happen.

I will admit, it felt awesome and I was kind of ecstatic when Connie asked for us to train her in sword fighting. Pearl and I agreed to train her and since I still needed some slight pointers as well, the both of us trained under Pearl's tutelage while I helped Connie with moral support.

Everything was going well for awhile but as the lessons went on and on, Pearl's reasons for fighting sort started to project onto Connie and both Steven and I were concerned what Pearl was teaching the rookie sword fighter. After much talking and arguing, as well as some fighting with her holograms, she came to her senses and agreed that I would be the main instructor, with her correcting me in whatever needs correcting in terms of moves, stances and so forth.

Some days later, we got harassed by Ronaldo on more than a few occasions. Jenny and some of the others told me how he was asking about Steven, I and the Gems about weird things that were happening. I was a little concerned at first about his interviews or evidence gaining the wrong attention but in the end, it all worked out.

* * *

" _Pearl, Marcus, NOW!" Garnet orders the both of us. Pear responds in kind by aiming at the giant crab monster and firing with repeated blaster fire from her spear and I pull out a full auto Glock pistol and the Mac 10 before spraying it as well. "Aim for the eye!"_

" _Aye-aye, Garnet!"_

" _You got it!" Pearl and I shift fire and focus our projectiles at the monsters single eye. Realizing what we are aiming for, it moves one of its claws to cover the eye._

" _Where's Amethyst?" Pearl asks out loud._

" _Don't know." I reply._

" _Right here!" Said purple gem jumps down and slices the protective claw right off it with her hair, making it squeal in pain and scurry off._

" _Nice one Amethyst!" I compliment her for her action. "It's running. Take it!" I shout and holster my weapons before flashing forward. Before it can get far, I grab the things remaining claw and force it to the ground. The monster drags me a little but I hold him firmly in place._

" _He's got it! Let's finish the job!" Garnet shouts. Pearl and Amethyst nod in agreement and as one, all three of them jump high into the air and propel downwards straight towards it. With a final squeal, the crab monster tries to move but he was doomed as soon as I grabbed it._

 _With a massive crash and in a large puff of smoke, I'm thrown backwards as the claw I was holding disappears in my arms. I land on the sand on my back in a heap and take a second to catch my breath. I prop my head up and see Garnet holding the things bubbled gem. "Nice one." I comment from my position on the ground. Pearl comes over to me and extends her hand to me, which I take and she pulls me up. "Thank you."_

" _You're welcome."_

" _Nice job back there." Garnet compliments me as well, making me smile._

" _Hey, what's going on over there?" We look over to where Amethyst is pointing and we see Steven talking to Ronaldo, who sounds like he's angry about something and Peedee is nearby filming._

" _Don't know. Let's see." I simply propose and we walk over to see what's going on._

" _But all the monsters just come here to get you guys, and then wreck things and put us in danger!" Ronaldo shouts as we walk up before he points and accusatory finger at us." Beach City would be_ _way_ _safer if you guys weren't here!"_

" _Listen, Frybo, magic beings are indeed drawn to us,_ _but_ _we were here long before Beach City even existed." Pearl calmly explains to him about us while Garnet sends the bubbled gem away._

" _Guess that explains why I haven't gotten any notifications anywhere else about monster sightings." I mutter to myself. Never did bother checking why since too much stuff came up that ate a chunk of my time._

" _Who cares how long you've been here? Innocent people are in danger as long as you're hanging around!"_

" _Ugh." I moan in annoyance at the way he describes how things 'should' be. "Listen man, we are not—"_

" _Your right, I guess we'll just leave then."_

" _WHAT?!" I almost scream at Garnets surrender._

" _Excuse me?"_

" _Really?"_

" _But, Garnet!"_

 _The rest of my friends are slightly less surprised but still concerned none the less. "Put your buts away, Steven," She cuts him off and picks him up before placing him on the top of her gigantic afro hair. "You too, Marcus." She cuts me off as I open my mouth. "We're not wanted here, so let's just leave." She says as she walks away with my brother_

" _But- You- we- why- how—?" My words come out in garbled messes as I trail after her, trying to figure out WHY she's wants us to leave just like that._

" _But Garnet, we'll have to move all the bubbles, a-and what about Steven's things? And Marcus just finished furnishing his new home." Pearl voices other problems as well._

" _Maaaaaaan, ugh, I kinda liked it here!" Amethyst just moans annoyed._

* * *

I still didn't forgive Garnet so easily when she told us a little while later that she was just kidding. She especially confirmed that when Ronaldo came over and almost begged us to stay.

Then later when Steven showed us the video he uploaded show casing our activities to the entire world, even my droids he caught on tape, I was debating hacking into his account and taking down the video or blocking access to it altogether, but seeing the absolutely no views it got, I didn't need to take drastic actions. And bless Steven's heart for the like he gave the video.

However despite the problems with Pearl and Ronaldo, I worked on my base regardless. Everything is coming along nicely and the whole place is nearly complete. First though, after everything with Connie's sword fighting, I found I am still reluctant to pull out my swords. All the drama with my… mom, and my other self, I both don't want and can't pull them out. With that in mind, I found I need a new weapon. Something to call my own that is not a hand-me-down and I can have a deeper connection it since its mine.

That's where, my forge comes into play. Before we went up against that crab gem creature, I was working on my new personal Katana sword. Using both types of ancient and modernized forms of techniques and materials, from both Tamahagane steel and High-strength low-alloy steel, I have made my sword.

The sword has the same lengths as a regular katana but has pieces of it that are my own design. The blade shines brightly when pulled from its sheathe and the length of the blade has a wave pattern going along it from the guard to the tip of the blade. The spine part of the blade that's blunt is colored black while the sharp blade part shines brightly with a steel silver color to it. The hand guard itself is an oval shape to it with a gold color to it, and the handle is red with a black tsukamaki cloth pattern wrapping on the handle itself.

The sheathe itself isn't anything overly complicated. I bore the wooden sheathe myself and matched it perfectly to my new blade. While it was in construction, I lined the insides of the wood with metal so I can use the sheathe for some sort of blocking instrument in a desperate situation and so my sword won't be damaged while it's sheathe. I lightly burned the outer part of the wood to give it a blackened look to it and gave it a protective coating to protect it from the elements. The strap I have equipped onto it is some heavy duty stuff so it won't be ripping any time soon and it's colored dark green.

I'll admit, not having the ability to pull out my sword at will from my gems and the slight weight might take some getting used to, but after hours upon hours of constantly working on it, doing the research needed on metal forging and sword making, I can't even begin to describe how ecstatic I am on testing this new weapon.

Unfortunately before I can do any Gem monster hunting, Garnet asked us all to meet.

"We need to track down Peridot. We found her pod. We know she's out there somewhere. She came to Earth with a job to do and odds are, she's still gonna try to do it. That's why I've gathered you here." She tells us as we all continue to fold a lot of Steven's same design t-shirts.

"Seriously Steven, how many of these shirts do you have?" I question in disbelief. I'm counting over a couple dozen of these shirts and I'm pretty sure these are just the ones we recently washed.

"Mm-mm." He shrugs his unsure answer as he places a folded shirt down and picks up another to fold. "I thought we were here so you can help me fold all this laund-a-ry!"

"That too. The chore wheel idea you had fell apart fast." Garnet comments.

"Wasn't me." Amethyst pipes up, thinking we would automatically turn to her for the cause of why it failed. That was not on our minds at all as we all look over to the fridge where the chore wheel is and see all our names on it. The only difference is that all but one name has been crossed out, leaving the name 'Pearl' to be the sole person to do all the chores. We turn back to the Gem in question.

"I just really enjoy doing all of those things." She says happily, making me chuckle and shake my head.

"If you were human and someone's daughter, you would make your parents very, very happy." I say. It's not often that a kid would be so inclined to clean up pretty much everything so if Pearl was a kid, man would she be a model child in the eyes of the parents.

"Regardless, it's better if we do them together." Garnet says.

"Humans should just stop wearing clothes, be a lot funnier."

"No… no it would not." I sternly tell her.

"Hey! I'm a civil-i-fied part human, thank you very much." I smirk at Steven's way of pronouncing civilized while I fold another shirt. "Clothing is a must."

"Thank you Steven." I thank him for his support on clothes as I place down a folded set.

"Hm... this is a lot. I bet this folding would go faster if Ruby and Sapphire were here." Steven proposes. Pearl and Amethyst look tensely at Garnet while I look at her curiously.

"I'm sure they'd be glad to see you Steven. But I am not unfusing for laundry." She replies.

"Aw." Steven looks down sadly.

"You sure?" I ask. All eyes turn to me, making me feel a little nervous. "I get you don't want to unfuse, it's just… I know you said Ruby and I are cool but… I still want to apologize to her face about putting a blade to her throat."

"You did what?!" Pearl and Amethyst ask loudly in surprise. _'Oh right, we never told them that. Whoops.'_

"Like I said Marcus, you're cool." She casually replies, ignoring the bewildered looks of our friends.

I stare at her for a few moments as she continues to fold clothes before I let out a sigh and fold as well. "If you say so."

The others look between the two of us a few times, expecting answers but since we don't acknowledge them, they shake their heads and go back to folding. Pearl perks her head up and looks at Garnet. "Garnet, you don't think Peridot would come looking for us, do you?" She asks her.

"We weren't her priority. She was sent here to do something in the Kindergarten."

"That's true. I still remember what she was talking about when we first saw her appear at the Galaxy Warp." I unconsciously rub my chest. "Really should have not left my gun laying around."

"Still, do you think she's still going to try to reactivate it?" Pearl asks.

"It's not like she has anything better to do, what with being stranded here and all." I point out.

"That's true. And if she gets it back up and running, the injectors will turn back on."

"Injectors? What're those?" Steven asks.

"You remember those machines you and the others helped me salvage some equipment from?" I ask him. He nods. "That's them."

"He's right." Pearl says then begins explaining. "You've already seen them. Well, you've seen them disabled. If Peridot reactivates them," She then projects a hologram from her gem about the Injectors. "They'll pick up right where they left off, planting Gems in the crust of the Earth, where they'll incubate and suck the life right out of the ground, we can't let Peridot restart Gem production here, if we do, the entire planet will become..."

"Janked." Garnet finishes Pearl's sentence.

"Garnet, that mouth!" Amethyst shouts in slight elation at Garnet's use of language before laughing. I smirk as well. _'C'mon, I use a lot more… extensive language than that.'_

"Don't worry, well stop her." Garnet assures us before she gets up and heads over to the Warp. "C'mon, Crystal Gems."

"Coming!"

"As long as we don't have to fold anything." Amethyst

"He-yup!" I roll onto my upper-back, planting my hands on the floor above my head and fling myself onto my feet. Grabbing my jacket, then strapping my sword to my left hip, I walk with them to our mode of transportation. As I stand next to them, we notice Steven is still trying to fold laundry. I let out a sharp whistle, which gets his attention. I nod my head towards us on the pad.

"C'mon, that means you too, right?" He gets a massive grin on his face and takes off towards us. Once he steps onto the pad, Garnet tussles his hair.

"You're a civilified part-gem too after all." She tells him with a smile.

"He sure is." I nudge his shoulder playfully.

"Garnet, are you sure we should bring Steven? This might be dangerous." Pearl asks worriedly to the fusion.

I give Pearl a questioning look, complete with eyebrow raise, "And the rest of the things we do isn't?"

"Well, uhhhhh…"

"It's fine Pearl. Besides, Peridot's got nothing we can't handle." Garnet tells her and activates the Warp.

* * *

"Log date 6 5 2." I hold my hand out to Steve, to indicate for him to stop at the sound of the voice. After we made it to the Kindergarten, we all split up in hopes of finding something that indicates what it is that Peridot is looking for. Not long after, Steven and I came upon the hole that the Plug Robonoid made when Peridot first sent it to earth.

I pull out my new Beretta's that I heavily modified. Now they are Beretta 92FS Inox's with stainless steel finish, extended barrels so I can add silencers or other muzzle brakes to them, green glow in the dark iron sights, extended magazines, and hair triggers. With both of them out, I aim them towards the holes as I hear what for some reason sounds like helicopter blades. Not long after, Peridot rises out of the elevator hole with her hand transformed and performing like some sort of helicopter like instrument.

"This is Peridot, updating status." She says while landing on the ground as she fiddles with her touchscreen, completely oblivious to Steven and I. "Still stuck on this miserable planet... The fusion experiments are developing properly. The location has been heavily stripped of materials for reasons I have yet to determine why. Still, a few of the fusions have even emerged early. AEEE!" She lets out a loud shriek upon seeing the both of us. I remain aiming at her but after a few tense seconds of both parties doing absolutely nothing, besides staring awkwardly at one another, I lower my firearms. Seeing as how I'm not going to shoot her in an instant, she glances around. "Are... the other ones... with you...?" She whispers to us. I take a quick glance around to see if I can see any of the others. I don't see them while Steven for a second shakes his head no but then it turns to repeated nodding, then shrugging. "Of course! Why not…" She groans as she turns off her touchscreen and facepalms.

"Sorry to disappoint." I sarcastically say with a smirk, which makes her glare at me with a pout. I suddenly remember something. "Hey! Where's my gun?"

"Peridot!"

"There she is!"

"Damn." I grumble under my breath. I was hoping since it's just the three of us, she would at least give me an answer but since the others tend to punch/slice/whip homeworld targets first and ask questions later, chances are she'll be more inclined and there she goes.

As soon as the others got close enough, she gasps and flees from us. The others immediately moved past me and Steven and chased after her. With a shake of my head, Steven and I follow them. We don't get very far as Peridot seems to have cornered herself against a rock wall. "Nowhere to go!" Amethyst calls out about Peridot's predicament.

"You're cornered!" Pearl adds as well.

All that doesn't stop Peridot however as somehow she starts running up the rock wall with such ease, like she was running along the ground. "How…?" My question draws out.

"Hey! I can't do that!" Steven cries out.

"Neither can she!" Pearl yells and throws her spear directly at Peridot. Her shot would have wrung true if she didn't duck.

"Ha! Missed!" Peridot taunts us.

"I'll show you missed."I grumble and using my left arm to stabilize my aim, I look down my sights, ready to shoot her finally.

*Crrreeeeaaaak*

"Oh." I mumble as I bring my guns. As it turns out, Pearls spear did hit something because once it flew past Peridot, it impacted the leg of one of the injectors, making it fall.

"OOHH!"

And hit's the fleeing Gem on the way down. We immediately move back and far away from where the falling debris is supposed to hit. As expected, the large defunct injector crashes into the ground and I'm pretty sure Peridot too. "Do you think she's hurt?" Steven asks.

"She just got several tons of rusty metal and glass dropped on her. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's hurt." I point out. There is some rustling however and a piece of the injector falls away, revealing Peridot. "Whether she got poofed however…" I leave my sentence hanging in the air.

As she emerges, she growls at us and aims one of her hands at us. It transforms before it rapidly fires a bunch of energy bolts at us. "Look out!" I warn my friends of the attack. Garnet grabs Steven and everyone jumps away in different directions from where we were. I jump back and bring my arms up to protect me. I didn't however find where I stepped to exactly because as the energy shots graze my arms, one hits where my feet were standing, crumbling the ground me, right in front of the hole that Peridot came out of. "Wha-! Arh!" I shout as I lose my footing and begin falling.

* * *

"Marcus!" One of his friends shouts as he began tumbling down the slope. He rolls end over end down the incline but soon starts rolling horizontally down it too. Not wanting to get too far, he thrusts his arm outward and slams his fingers into the dirt. With a grunt, his body gets twisted straight as he's halted his progress with his fingers dug deep into the earth. He slides a few more feet until finally coming to a stop with both hands and feet in the ground. "Marcus!" He looks up and realizes that he rolled a lot farther than he thought. A couple faces look down the hole to him. "Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine!" He replies back. "Get at her!" He tells them to get Peridot. They nod and pull back away from the hole. With a sigh, he looks around and finds that he's in the hole the Plug Robonoid made that time he and his family came to the Kindergarten. "What was Peridot doing down here? I cannibalized this place of almost any useful scrap and gear I could find. Unless…" He trails off as he looks down the expanse. _'I know the terminal is still down here, so is the walls and maybe a couple wires but that shouldn't allow for anything to be used.'_ He thinks from his time being there. "Unless I missed something." He eerily says at the idea. With his decision set in mind, he straightens himself out and slides the rest of the way down the hole. It doesn't take him long to slide the rest of the way down and as soon as his feet hit the solid ground, he steps forward a few more steps and pull out one of his pistols. Before he can look around however, the light from the outside from the hole completely closes up. "Aw man." He groans and pulls out his flashlight to light everything around him. Using them together, he scans the area and see if there's anything that immediately comes off as different.

A lot of it does. Around a dozen pieces of cylinders of metal and dirt stick out from the ceiling and litter the area around where the console is. "Hm?" He question out loud at the odd looking objects. He shines his light on them and they don't come off or jump at him that there a threat but he's been wrong on that regard before. More light illuminates everything around him all of a sudden followed by some voices. "Is the strong part of you Ruby and the wise part of you Sapphire?" Steven asks Garnet.

Looking at the source, Marcus sees that the entrance was uncovered and two bodies are sliding and talking towards him. Well, more specifically one is sliding and carrying a much smaller body with her. "It's all of both. When two gems combine, it creates something greater than the sum of their parts. That's why I'm so great." She answers the kid back.

Garnet steps onto the green floor that Marcus is on and places Steven down. "What's it like to stayed fused all the— Whoa." Steven says in awe at the atmosphere of the place.

"I know right?" Marcus agree with him.

"Yeah, I don't know how but... this place is even creepier than the last time we were here." He comments.

"Yes. There's something going on." Garnet says as the two of them look all over the place. They simultaneously look at their friend. "What's going on?" She asks.

He shrugs his shoulders in response, "Not a hundred percent myself." He says and shines his light at where the power was. "No power means she didn't access the console but I don't think that was what she wanted." Next he shines the light on the cylinders. "These are the only new additions to this place since we salvaged what we could from here. I've never seen them before." He informs them of his best hypothesis of this place.

"Your right. This is something strange." Garnet replies as she takes a closer look at one of the ceiling cylinders.

Suddenly a small rumbling noise gets all of their attention. Marcus trains his flashlight and pistol on one of the more intact dirt pillars on the ground and walks closer to it. Garnet walks close to examine the thing while Marcus examines it from behind. "Uhh, guys?" Steven says in worry at the rumbling noise and moves behind Garnet. The pillar shakes, a few bits of dirt falling off it from the illumination of Marcus's light. "Is there… something in there?" He asks.

"It… kind of looks like- Ah!" Marcus's question turns to a shriek as something lands on him, gripping him tightly. "Gah! Grrr! Get off!" He shouts while flailing around, his flashlight shining all over the place as more of what landed on him lands around everyone else as well. He drops his pistol and manages to grab a firm hold of what it is that's got him and he yanks it off. Holding it in front of him, he shines the light on it, revealing some sort of mismatched hand thing with different colors. "What the…?"

"What are they?" Steven asks from nearby. Before Marcus can inquire, it's fingers curl and tries to lunge at his face, making him grunt and Steven to shriek. He throws the thing onto the ground as hard as he can. It hits the ground with a soft 'smack' and lies still for a second before it tries to crawl to Steven. "Aah-Aaaaah!" He shouts and crawls away from it.

*Poof*

With a loud stomp, a black boot crushes the thing in an instant, making it poof into a small cloud of dust. Marcus stands there after curb stomping the thing and clears away the smoke, revealing what was left behind. He reaches down and grabs the item. "What is it?" Garnet asks walking up to them. Marcus holds up the item he picked up, showing its actually some gem shards.

"Their… Gem shards. I would know…" He grimly says in memory of his past. After shattering over two dozen gems, he kind of knows what Gem shards look like. "But what are they doing here?" He asks in confusion. Garnet however starts to get a look of disgust about her as she sees just what's wrong with these two particular pieces of gems.

"It looks like... two gems shards, stuck together." Steven points out.

"Guuah!" Before Marcus can properly examine it, Garnet cries out in horror and disgust before she swats the piece out of his hands, as well as his flashlight, where it rolls and shines on the dirt pillar they were looking at earlier. Marcus is about to question why but at the distressing look she has about her, his question goes unasked.

"Is that what all these things are? Gems... stuck together?" Steven asks. Unbeknownst to him, he doesn't see the horror that is plaguing Garnet at the information.

"Garnet?" Marcus asks her but she doesn't respond, staring at one of the creatures crawling to her in front of the dirt pillar. "Gra!" Marcus shouts and stomps on it, reverting it back into its gem form to reveal indeed two gem shards fused together. "Garnet!" He yells her name while looking at her. "C'mon snap out of it. I need you—"

"Wait, what was that?" Steven says, interrupting Marcus from his actions. True to what he says, they hear a slight rumbling sound and dirt cracking.

Very slowly, Marcus turns around and stares at the dirt pillar they were examining earlier start to break apart. A large chunk of the ground breaks away, revealing a large Gem fused together from over half a dozen other Gem shards. "Wha- Ah!" Marcus begins to say but shouts in surprise as his foot steps on his flashlight, cracking the frame. The light begins flickering like a strobe light on the dirt pillar as the Gem begins to form its body. The multiple piercing cries of anguish the glowing gem form gives is accentuated by the flickering broken flashlight and the multiple gems fused together trying to each make their own body but fails. As they fail, they form together into a massive much more horrific looking gem monster. It's long, large and has many many arms about it. The creature begins walking forward towards us menacingly. He glances back to see that Garnet is completely frozen. "Son of a…" He mutters and brings one of his pistols up to bear with both hands.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*

Firing three shots in quick succession, the creature shrieks in pain and recoils before it charges forward. Marcus runs forward, firing the rest of his ammo as well but it isn't deterred in the least as she crash into each other. Marcus tries to tackle the thing away from his friends but the creatures mass stops him from pushing back. The arms on the creature fold in and grab Marcus along his back and arms before hoisting him up. "Marcus!"Steven cries out his brothers name as he is lifted into the air with ease. As the hybrid struggles a bit, he is suddenly thrown to the far side of the room.

"Pah!" Marcus lets out a strangled gasp as his body thrown roughly against the wall. He lands on the ground in a limp mess and falls unconscious.

"Marcus? Marcus! Ah!" Steven shouts in surprise as one of the other smaller clustered gems jumps and tries to grab him. "Garnet. What do we do?" Steven asks the fusion and summons his shield to push back the other monsters attacking. "Please talk to me! Ah!"

The giant clustered gem monster, after tossing the person that tried to attack it, menaces forward toward the last two. Steven is still focused on the smaller monsters while Garnet is frozen still in fear and horror. "Ugh!" She cries out as the monster grabs her, one of its arms smacking her glasses off her face, fully revealing her face to everyone and the tears pooling under all three of them. "These were Crystal Gems, shattered into pieces. They were buried together." She says in disbelief.

"Why aren't you moving?" Steven asks her from behind with worry, still trying to push back more of the small monsters.

"They were forced together... They were forced to fuse! This is wrong!" She grunts as she seems to be having some sort of inner turmoil. "Uh, uh, I'm sorry." She apologizes. To the two's surprise, Garnet begins to glow and her body begins to break apart.

"NO! No, Garnet, you're coming undone! Garnet! Garnet!" Steven cries out, afraid of what's going on. He grunts as he pushes another fusion hand away with his shield. "Marcus help! Garneeet! Please, what's the matter?!" He cries out scared for his caretaker. As she begins to further unfuse, his eyes widen. "Marcus, help us!" He cries out one last time in hopes of getting his brothers attention.

*SHINK*

A blade is thrust and ends just before stabbing Garnet's third eye. The fusions form stops separating and blinks back its tears, now confused at the blade. Her vision travels the length of the blade and shows it jutting out of the Gem of the clustered gem monster. The monster lets out a final strangled cry before it breaks apart in a loud and heavy cloud of dust. With Garnet no longer held or being forced apart, her body pulls back together and stops glowing. The smaller monsters attacking Steven are forced back from the explosion and he turns around at what happened. The dust starts to settle and reveals to the exactly what happened.

Marcus stands with his arms stretched forward rigidly, his new sword kept tight in his two-handed grip with the clustered gem stuck on his blade. Garnet's eyes widen at seeing the damage he caused while the hybrid himself has his face remain impassive. She slowly reaches forward to touch the mismatched gem.

*Clink*

The pieces of the gem all separate, breaking off from each other and fall to the ground in a small cascade of crystals. Garnet takes a step back and looks down at the pieces with a look of horror on her face. "You… you… you…" She stammers.

Marcus lets out a deep breath of air he was holding and lets his sword fall to his side. "I'm… I'm sorry Garnet. I know you don't like it when I do stuff like this," He says as he looks and motions to the pieces on the ground. "But I saw you frozen and unfusing and I never saw you do that before so I didn't have much choice to—!"

*SLAM*

"GUH!" Marcus's sentence is cut off as an unmovable force slams him against the wall. The force lifts him off his feet and slams him against one of the walls, making him drop his sword as well. Something immediately closes around his throat and cuts off his airway, making him choke. Through his slightly but rapidly blurry vision he manages to make out what it is that's got him in a vulnerable position. Apparently, Garnet didn't like him intervening like he did.

"Garnet! What are you—?!" Steven begins to shout in surprise and worry at the fusions brash action towards his brother but his worry goes largely unheeded.

"You shouldn't have done that." Garnet tells Marcus in a low and threatening voice. The hybrid can't respond properly, letting our strangled gasps, as the big bulky weaponized gauntlet keeps a firm grip on his throat as he grabs it to force it off him. He doesn't have the leverage to force it off him. "These were Crystal Gems from the war and they're scared. They were just scared and you just shattered them like you always do!" She yells in his face in anger, tightening her grip.

"Gah! Cruh!" He tries to speak but he's still unable to.

"You didn't have to shatter them like that! They were scared Marcus! AFRAID! YOU SHOULDN'T—!"

"GARNET!" The fusions furious face softens at the voice. Her grip is near crushing at this point and Marcus's eyes are starting to droop from lack of oxygen but his grip is near crushing as well on her arm. She feels something on her leg and looks down to see Steven grabbing her leg, desperately trying to pull her away. He looks at her with tear filled eyes, which makes her grip lighten up. "Please… stop… let him go. He didn't mean to." He tells her, almost completely falling breaking down and crying. Her eyes widen and her mouth parts open in surprise at how he is and looks at the person in her grip. Without being choked Marcus stares at her with an impassive look with his hands still gripped firmly on her arms. After a few more seconds, she lets him go. He falls to the ground in a heap and grabs his throat as he breathes in as deeply as he can. Steven runs over to him as he breathes in and out in deep strides. Steven hugs Marcus as he manages to regain his breathing. "Marcus! Are you okay?" Steven asks him worriedly.

Marcus in return breathes in deeply a few more times before finally coming to his senses. "Uhhhh… yeah, yeah I'm alright." He manages to tell him as he rubs his neck. Steven hugs him again and Marcus pats his back.

"So this is what Homeworld thinks of fusion!" The two of them look up to Garnet as she talks. She is staring down at the pieces of the Gem that Marcus shattered and has her back to the others.

"We couldn't have known they would do this..." The Sapphire part of Garnet tries to reason.

"This is where they've been. All the ones we couldn't find. They've been here the whole time!" Ruby says in slight anger.

"Rose Couldn't have known."

"This is punishment for the rebellion!"

"It's not our fault!:

"Garnet." She stops talking to herself at the voice. She turns around to see Marcus standing with Steven right next to him, his sword in hand. He doesn't look angry at her, just concerned.

With the gems in hand and bubbled, she sends them back to the temple and turns to her family. "St-Steven… Marcus…"

"Yo." Before they can talk anymore, Amethyst and Pearl come into the control room.

"We lost Peridot." Pearl informs them. "Her fingers were too fast for us." A two handed fused monster climb up on Amethyst, much to Pearl's confusion as she grabs them. "Um... What are these things?"

"Put them down!" Garnet's loud voice makes Pearl and Amethyst flinch.

"Wha…" Pearl reluctantly does what she's told and tosses it away.

"We need to poof and bubble all of them. We can't let any escape." She tells them all to do. She punctuates that by bringing her arm down and poofing the hands Pearl was holding. Once the gem is revealed, she bubbles it and sends it away.

Pearl, wanting a slightly more detailed explanation, walks over to the hybrid brothers and opens her mouth to talk but closes it abruptly. Her eyes look on Marcus's neck. "Oh my! Marcus what happened to your neck?!" She says out loud in worry.

He brings his hand up and places it on the side of his neck. He flinches a little at the raw feeling his bruised skin has as he steps away from her. In one stride he quickly glances to Steven's scared face, to Garnet's slightly surprised look, before looking away. He rubs his neck for a bit before bringing his arm down and glancing from the side to Pearl. "I… I got snuck up on. One of those hands grabbed me… and tried to choke me out." He lies to them. Steven has slightly relieved look on his face and Garnet's confused. "Garnet… helped me out before it could get worse." He finishes saying and slices a fusion monster crawling on the wall.

* * *

The wind bristles against me as I stand with my sword drawn. The slowly descending sun is on the water as I stand in the Ko Gasumi No Kamae stance with my sword ready.

Sweat slowly rolls down the side of my head as I just stand there, my hair lifting just slightly from the wind.

I can hear my heart thumping in my chest as I wait for the right moment.

*Thump-thump*

*Thump-thump*

*Thump-thump*

"Heya!"

*Shink!*

After the third heart beat, I struck. My sword slices through the air in the blink of an eye, cutting through the air with ease as well as the bamboo mat dummy I purchased. The item in question, slices in two at an angle. Once the mat hits the ground, I twist around and slice another in half. Using only one hand, I do a 360 degree turn and slice two more mats on opposite sides of me with my outstretched arm. I bring the sword down to the ground in one hand, pointed towards the ground. My breathing comes in deep strides and gasps.

*Snap*

My eyes widen and turn around, bringing my arm in an overhand angled strike. "Haaaa!" I yell as I strike down.

My attack doesn't connect, the blade stopping just an inch from Garnet's neck. "Marcus." She says my name calmly, not at all affected by the razor sharp blade nearly against her neck.

With a huff, I bring my sword back and away from her. I twirl it a couple times in one hand before sliding it home in my sheathe on my hip. Once the blade clicks home, I stand straight. "Garnet." I say her name in return. Walking over to the table I have set up, I place my sword down on it.

"I'm sorry." I freeze at her apology. For a second I don't do anything until I let it go and look at the wall of my house. I turn back to the Gem and nod.

"I know you are."

"I shouldn't have attacked you like that."

"Yeah you shouldn't have."

"I hope you understand why I… I did what I did." She tells me hesitantly. I offer her a comforting smile.

"From the… inner discussion you, or more specifically, the both of you, were having… yeah I have a fairly good idea why you were so angry." I explain to her.

"That's good." She tells me with a hint of relief in her voice.

"And I hope you understand why 'I' did what I did." I say to her. She flinches at the memory of me stabbing that Gem that was causing her so much torment and nearly unfused her. "Seeing you almost unfuse like that was kind of unsettling to say the least. It was after you almost choked me to death," She looks down at that mention, "That I understood why you were so distraught but at the time… all I cared about was getting rid of the thing that was causing you so much grief so quickly." I explain to her my reasons for my actions.

She looks down for a second before looking up and stares towards the sun. I walk up next to her and we both look out towards the sun together, neither of us saying anything as we stare. "I guess I can't fault you for actions. In the moment, to see you having shattered that Gem like that… it seemed too much to believe." She says sadly.

"To be fair, they were already shattered and it looks like my attack just separated them again. I hope at least I didn't cause any more cracks than were already there."

"Hm, yeah I guess so." She says with a smirk. With that, we turn to each other. "So, no hard feelings?" She asks me as she holds out her hand.

With a smile, I take her hand in my own and we shake. "Yeah, no hard feelings." I agree with her.

She smiles as our hands before we let go. "Hey Steven! We're good!"

"Great!"

I turn around to one of the hands on the statue and right over where we have the washing machine set up, I see Steven with a bundle of clothes next to him. Looking at him with a confused look on my face as he keeps the wide grin on him, I look back at Garnet who smirks. "After we talked, he said I should come over here to apologize to you. Seeing you train with your sword kind of gave him that idea."

"Ohhhhh." I say in understanding. Looking towards Steven, I give him a wave and a thumbs up, who returns it. "That was nice of him."

"Yeah it was." She agrees with me and walks over to the table. "I see you made a new sword."

"Oh yeah. It may not have the ease of accessibility like the summoned ones," I say as I pick it up and unsheathe the blade. The sound of the metal grinding and sliding as the blade is revealed to the open air is a sound and feeling I absolutely love. "But there is something about having made this by hand with my own skills, makes it that much more satisfying." I calmly explain to her with a satisfying smile on my face as I slowly twist the blade around.

"Nice." She comments. Her hand reaches out and she glides her fingers on the edge of my blade. "Ow." Not even a centimeter down the blade, she says. She brings the cut finger back and places it in her mouth.

I give her a sheepish grin, "Sorry. As it stands," I slide my sword into its sheathe. "I do good work."

 **Seeing as how big of an impact the whole clustered fusion Gems things is to Garnet, I think I did alright on how… strong she feels on Marcus's choice of action. After my less than, stellar work on the last chapter, I wanted to go ahead and give this to you all. I'm no longer going to be restricted to having Marcus get hurt just so I can advance the story along and skip some episodes. I'll go ahead and skip them with a brief, sometimes flashback, description of the previous episodes on how everything went.**

 **If there are some episodes that you guys feel would be great material for me to use, or you think it necessary for me to work with, say so and I'll see how it plays out. For now though, still expect these long periods of time between chapters okay. Both school and my games are eating at me. I'm having a lot of fun playing with my friends on Halo Wars 2, and I find I like the Viking Valkyrie in For Honor as well. Officially both her and the Samurai's Orochi are my favorite classes to use.**

 **I also want to tell you all that I sort of got sick for about a week so that kind of screwed me up as well on getting stuff done for you all. Already I've got a couple more games preordered and excited to grab when they get out: Mass Effect Andromeda, and Lord of the Rings: Shadow of War. Saw the gameplay and whatever I can find for those two and I am pretty excited for them.**

 **I'm doing alright in my classes currently so I'm not killing myself over studying and worrying about what I'm going to get as a grade and such.**

 **Also I saw the new Kong movie. It was alright. The actions scenes were pretty good to me. As you guys may have noticed from my work, the sword scenes were my particular favorite.**

 **Sorry for the intense delay everyone and for the missing chapter title on the previous chapter. Its fixed now. I'll do what I can to not let this next chapter be as far off as this one. Thank you all, have a great day and have fun reading.**


	46. 44 Cry for Help

Things just keep getting interesting anytime it involves Steven doesn't it. Sometime after dealing with the fusion gem monsters, we decided to go about doing some more thorough searches for Malachite, AKA, Jasper and Lapis's fusion. For the majority of one of the days all of us spent it on an inflatable raft we had in storage and just went sailing around without much care. Of course as night started to fall, Steven started to get really tired and sleepy, even almost walking off the boat entirely if Garnet hadn't grabbed his foot. After he pretty much passed out from exhaustion and fatigue starting to wane on me as well, we called it a night and headed home to turn in.

Well, almost all of us turned in. As it stands, Gems don't necessarily need sleep so after Steven heard about that tidbit of information, he started to go off on trying to get Amethyst and Pearl to fall asleep as well while Garnet continued searching. It was a little weird finding out that full blown Gems project their dreams when they sleep from their gems… then it was painful when Pearl slugged me in surprise when she woke up from a, to her, nightmare. Something involving Greg of all people but that wasn't my concern. My concern was kind of realizing that although her skills and attributes focus on grace, dodging and precision, she still has a mean right hook and how it almost displaced my jaw.

However my main concern was sort of on the new ability of Stevens called Astral Projection. Basically what it means is that while he's dreaming or in his mind he has the ability to communicate with others over long distances. The fact that he was able to talk to Lapis and Jasper was a relief, disappointment and anger.

Relief that we have a direct line of communication to Lapis and she can tell us where she is so we can help her.

Disappointment that she completely ignored Steven's advice for help and decided she didn't want to involve us whatsoever in her struggle to chain Jasper.

Anger… that I can't help and how Steven told us how she was having trouble keeping things under control.

It may seem like things are slightly better knowing how things are, but I still feel like hell since I now know what she's going through.

But she's tough. She went through a lot of crap before she met me and Steven, and after. She only has to hold out till we can find her.

* * *

Since we found out about the fusion monsters, more time was spent analyzing the wreckage pieces of Peridot's ship. First and foremost I cracked open some locked containers and rooms salvaged from the ship and was very happy with what I found.

I now have access to those bipedal robonoids that I fought back when the ship was in flight. Dubbing mine I hack into Droids Mk II, I have my own security force so to say.

In some of the smaller locked areas, I found a badly damaged armory. It contained what look like some parts for the Mk II's weaponry, some pieces for what I assume is Peridot's gauntlets, but most of all I found a small stockpile of Gem Destabilizers. Just seeing them kind of flared some emotions up for me and how they were used on my friends, Garnet especially. A little while after, I managed to calm myself down and focused on the benefits of what I can do with them: I can gut and rework them to suit my needs. With that thought in mind, I got a giddy look on my face as ideas started popping up on what I can do.

Dealing with my Mk II's, I haven't exactly activated them and had them mill about like I do with my droids in my base until I come up with some countermeasures in case they go rogue or are taken over by Peridot. They were her bots in the first place so I need to take extra precautions to make sure nothing is turned against me. It's a cautionary point on my side but it's not a major issue so I'm alright with doing this.

* * *

Things have been quiet lately as evident by the fact that I am sitting on my couch flipping channels in my home. The search for Malachite is slow going so since we are pretty much stuck in trying to find any sort lead as to where she is, we decided to focus our attention on Peridot and make sure she doesn't do anything else that screws with us or anyone else in general. The search for more of those fusion monsters can be a bit tedious and unexpected.

Still, she's in the dark as well so we are stuck on her too.

*Zzzzzzzzzztt*

"Aw c'mon!" I shout in frustration as my TV just burst into static. "Seriously?! I triple checked my dish several times now! What the hell's going—" Before I can finish my rant, the TV starts vibrating for some odd reason. "Oooooookay. Whaaaaat's going on?" I question out loud as I slowly stand up. The world around isn't vibrating so I know its not an earthquake but some sort of signal is screwing with my TV. "Whoa!" I yelp as I quickly dash forward just as my TV falls off the stand its on and almost hits the ground. I catch just before it makes contact. The cords are still connected so the static is still going as well as the vibration. "What is—"

Before I can finish, an image starts to form on the static and to my ire, I catch glimpses of it being Peridot herself. It's a bit garbled and you can't hear what she's saying at first but it comes in clear soon after. "This is Peridot, transmitting on all frequencies from abandoned crystal system colony planet Earth, to Yellow Diamond. My mission has been compromised, my escort and informant are gone and I am now stranded! Please send help! This is Peridot transmitting on all frequencies from..."

"Great." I groan and lay my TV on the ground before standing up. "She's sending a message back home. That can't be good." I mutter and walk over to my laptop. After turning it on and booting it up, I start up a program to use the satellite dish on my roof to look for the source of the interference and send a message to my phone of the location. "Alright, as long as she keeps transmitting I'll find it." I say as I lean back in my chair, arms crossed as the screen places points all over the planet and rapidly starts shrinking them down to the source. My front door opens and I see Garnet enter.

"Marcus—"

"Already on it." I cut her off as I follow her out.

* * *

"This is Peridot, transmitting on all frequencies…"

"It still hasn't let up." I comment as we all sit in front of Steven's TV and watch the message play back again. The whole thing is just her and a white screen so I can't exactly use her surroundings to find where she might be.

"Okay, thanks." Steven says as he hangs up his phone. "Connie says it's on her TV too."

"Great." I mutter.

"But where could Peridot be broadcasting a signal that strong?" Pearl asks curiously.

"There is only one place she could transmit it from… but didn't you salvage the place?" Garnet directs the question to me.

I'm confused to what she means at first because I don't know exactly what she means, but a beep from my phone leads me to my answer. Looking at the alert, my scan finished and was able to triangulate where the signal is coming from, which leads to me being even more confused. I raise an eyebrow in confusion as I see the spot on the map. "I did." I say without looking towards my friends.

* * *

A portal opens up with all three Gems riding on Lion's back, flying through the air before sliding along the sand and coming to a stop. Lion lands in a huff on the sand. His mane starts glowing and out pops both Steven and I. The both of us take in deep breaths due to the limited oxygen in Lion's pocket world or whatever it is. I let my brother go and he rubs Lion's head. "Lion, are you okay?" He asks in concern for the animal. He gives off a low groan as he lays in the sand and looks like he's going to take nap.

"He's fine." I say with a slight grunt and stand up. Pulling out my G3 into my hand, I look around and my eyes stop. "We, however, have a problem." I say as my eyes travel up and up and up.

"It's as I feared." Garnet says warily. Right in front of us is a massive haphazardly constructed tower. The place gives off a large glow to it and a clear beam of energy shoots into the sky.

"It looks like Peridot somehow repaired the Communication Hub. Well, at least some of it." Pearl comments and I nod.

"I'll give her credit though, I stripped this place of as much technological pieces I can muster." Quickly I take a look around and to my amazement I don't really see any terminals or controls that look like they control this thing. "She even managed to make this thing work without any wires. Amazing."

"So... we just gotta wreck it up again, right?" Steven asks. I nod and he looks over to Amethyst. "You guys should form Sugilite!"

My eyes widen and I tighten my grip on my rifle. This is why trigger discipline is very important people. If I had my finger on the trigger and not on the side of the rifle, I would have fired. But I didn't so all I did was just deathly grip my gun. Using only one hand on the handle of my gun, I also grab my sword and thumb the handle at the memory of fighting Sugilite. _'She was a crazy massive fusion to deal with and just thinking about the crap we all went through was something I do not want to deal with whatsoever again.'_ I've been in my thought so much I didn't notice the others were talking.

"Last time was disaster. Last time we fused, Sugilite went berserk. It's because of her that we can't even warp here anymore." She indicates to the Warp pad was before. "Not to mention some of us still have some issues concerning her."

"What? Who?" Amethyst asks. Garnet looks away from the purple gem and right at me. The others follow her view and realization gets on their faces. "Oh."

"What?"

"You've been thumbing your sword since Steven said her name." Garnet answers. Looking down, I notice that my fidgeting of the blade caused it to push out of the scabbard, revealing the blade. Embarrassed, I look away as I close it back up. "I can be brash, you can be reckless." Garnet tells Amethyst as she takes off her visor. "And we can both get carried away. So, for the time being," She puts her visor back on. "Sugilite is benched." Amethyst looks sad at the news. "What we need now is to be careful." Garnet says with a smile and looks at Pearl. Steven lets out a gasp, figuring out what it is that Garnet is proposing. I slightly smile at the idea too. "It's you and me, Pearl. Let's fuse." She tells her. Pearl doesn't respond, instead she looks astonished at the idea. So astonished that she begins to tear up. "Don't cry, Pearl." Pearl fails to not cry and quivers as she strongly breathes in through her nose. _'Fusing with Garnet must really be big if what I remember how… happy Amethyst was when Garnet proposed fusing that first time.'_ "Come on, let's do this."

"… I'm right behind you." Pearl answers as she sniffles a little.

"Woo-hoo! Fusion! Fusion! Fusion! Fusion!" Steven yells out happily and ecstatically, running around the two of them a couple times before running past me and sitting down to the left of Lion. Amethyst and I walk over next to him as well.

Garnet and Pearl get at a fair distance away from each other before taking their stances. As Garnet's stands ready, her gemstones glow. "Ready." She states.

"Hang on, uh." Pearl grunts as she begins stretching. "It's been such a long time."

At that comment I can't help but smirk. Feels like it's been a long time since that event Pearl and I went through in the Kindergarten. When the Iron Kings ambushed me in that gloomy place, I thought I was done for… but then Pearl comes in and saves my life just before I get a new hole in my head. After we get reacquainted, more of them got the jump on us and nearly blew us up with RPG's. If I hadn't tackled Pearl to the ground and the possible hopelessness of the situation presented… well, we both might not be here now and not have fused into the fusion Serpentine. After we separated and moped up, we decided not to tell the others about our fusion, deciding to just go ahead and keep it for ourselves. Evidently, I guess fusion is a lot bigger deal than I first thought with Pearl considering how much she was tearing up when Garnet mentions fusing with her. Just before she gets into position I see her glance at me from the corner of her eye. She winks at me and gets into her position. _'Huh, guess she remembers.'_ I think as I sling my rifle on my back and wait with Steven and Amethyst. Like the fusion dances I've seen before, it starts off graceful and somewhat simple but as usual, it starts to come off as slightly more… lewd in some sense. "Hey!" Which prompts me to cover Steven's eye and he's a little annoyed.

I don't say anything as Amethyst and I continue to watch the two of them move around in their fusion dance. At the end, Garnet tosses Pearl into the air, who twirls into the air and goes into a spread eagle form. As she comes back down, Garnet catches her and the two of them combine in a large ball of light, their fusion beginning. I bring one of my hands up to shield my eyes from the bright light that emanates from their fusing. _'Whoa, that's a bit… brighter than the ones from before.'_ My thoughts are answered as a tall pillar of light stops. "Gooooood evening, everybody!" Suddenly a very happy and loud voice calls out from within the light. The light begins to lessen and come off as transparent before it looks like a curtain. A few hands part the curtain and reveals to us a very tall woman with multiple arms. She begins strutting over to us and does a twirl. "This is the lovely Sardonyx! Coming to you live from the soon-to-be-former Communication Hub! How are y'all doin' tonight?"

"Great…" I hear Amethyst say sarcastically while Steven and I gape at the fusion.

"Woah." I mutter.

Steven runs forward and lets out a gasp. "Giant Woman!" He yells. Man what is it with this guy and giant women?

"Oh my stars!" Sardonyx cries out in what I think is vague surprise as she lays her eyes on Steven. She crouches down and brings two of hands down in front of the kid. They easily dwarf his small form as he climbs onto the hands. "If it isn't Steven Universe! We finally meet. So, what do you think?" She asks him as somehow she spins her torso a full 360 degrees while her other pair of hands touch her hair. "Was I worth the wait?" She asks him. Right now I'm just a tiny bit freaked on the idea that she somehow managed to twist specific parts of her body. "What am I saying?" She asks confused before it turns to an ecstatic look. "Of course I was! Hahahaha!" She laughs as Steven manages to stand up on her hands.

"Wow." I comment quietly, then lean closer to Amethyst. "She sure is… eccentric, isn't she?"

"Ugh, you have no idea." She comments in disdain. I look curiously at her and see the slightly annoyed and frustrated look she has on her. _'What's got to her?'_

"Wow, you're so articulated!" Steven comments on the fusion, bringing me from my thought.

"Well, aren't you the sweetest little charmer!" She tells him as she brings her other pair of arms on him, squishing him playfully. I could literally squish you right now! It would not be hard. _'If anyone else said that to my brother, I may do some bodily injury to them.'_

"Ha-ha, no… ha-ha!" He laughs from the feel of being squished, further alleviating any worries I would have of him getting hurt.

Sardonyx soon stops and brings Steven close to her face. "Sorry, I'm just so excited to be here. You see, I haven't exactly been myself lately." After she says that, she starts laughing and brings Steven away from her.

I'm confused by what she's implying but Steven laughs along with her before looking towards Amethyst and I. "Fusion joke!"

"Fusion Jo- Oh! Oh." I suddenly get what the joke is but I groan and place my hand on my face.

"Ugh." Amethyst groans as well as she pushes her head into her crossed arms.

"Ehhhh, listen Sardonyx!" I call out loudly. She looks down at me curiously. "We are thrilled to have you here," I say with a slight bit of sarcasm, not enough for it to be noticeable of course, "But we kind of need this thing taken out stat!" I point with my thumb behind me at the makeshift communication tower.

"Ahhh and Marcus! Our ever serious, paranoid and always prepared human-gem. How are you?" She say to me with a wide smile and with one of her free hands, she clenches it into a fist towards me.

Taking it as I think, I smirk and give her a fist bump. Easily her hand dwarfs mine but I put enough power into that it doesn't matter. She seems to smile even more at that. "I'm good. Feel better with that gone." I nod my head to the tower.

"Yes we all would." She then places Steven back down next to Amethyst and I. "And don't worry, jokes aren't the only thing I got." She tells me and with ease, she pulls out Pearl's spear. "Hm? Oh!" She tosses the spear up into the air and as it comes back down, she summons Garnet's gauntlets and just before it passes her, she punches the spear from both sides, stopping it from falling and making the two of them form together Sardonyx's weapon. She readies herself her new war hammer over her shoulder with a smile. I give an appreciative nod at the weapon of choice.

"Are you gonna smash stuff with your war hammer?" Steven asks her.

She thinks for a second on his question. "Hm... 'smash' is the word that one would use to describe what... someone else might do." At Amethyst's scowling nature, I can hazard a guess that she means Sugilite. While I feel for Amethyst and the fact that one of her fusions is benched, Sardonyx is right on the fact of how… brutish she can be. "Now..." She then jumps up high into the air and readies a hit. "The proper words used to describe yours truly are..." She hits a column piece of the Communication Hub and it slides through and lands on the other side of it. "Specific!" Swinging again, she hits more columns with each word punctuated. "Intelligent! Accurate! Faultless!" After jumping much higher into the air, which pushes her past the moon from our position on the ground, she continues. "Elegant." More pieces are knocked away as she continues listing again and again. Controlled! Surgical! Graceful!" With one final follow up, she jumps up and brings her hammer overhead and prepares a final hit at top of the tower. Aaandd... Powerful!" She shouts and brings it down. I prepare myself for the impact of the hammer on the central piece column but she stops just before hitting for some reason. "But yes, occasionally, I am known... to smash."

I roll my eyes at her action and with barely any effort, she lightly taps the top of tower with her hammer. I don't know how but the column is flung straight down towards the ground with the same force as if she would have struck it before she stopped. As soon as it lands on the ground, the glow coming from the hub dissipates. Just to be sure, I pull out my phone and check to make sure the signal really is down. Pulling up the necessary app, I smile as the signal disappears. "Nice."

A thump brings me from my phone to see Sardonyx has come down from the tower. She tosses her hammer away but before it can hit the ground, it disappears and breaks apart into a flurry of glowing light dragonflies. They flow around us and Lion almost jumps onto me as he tries to chomp on the dragonflies. "Now, just remember everybody." Sardonyx begins to say, "If you ever have need of the lovely Sardonyx, let Pearl and Garnet know, I'll be there in a flash." She tells us with a smile, then squats down in front of us. "Literally." She says with a cheeky smile.

With that, she poofs into another cloud of light dragonflies, leaving behind the two gems who fused to make her in the first place in their dance position. For a second they remain held together with their eyes closed but as soon as they open their eyes, they burst out laughing and start spinning each other around. "Wooo!" Steven runs over and starts laughing and cheering with the two of them and hugs them. "You guys were amazing!"

"We were? Oh, well that's good!" Pearl says with a blush and smile once they stop spinning.

"We were awesome." Garnet agrees as well. Before I can think to go over and congratulate, Amethyst next to me crouches down and looks down in what I feel is disappointment. I look at her worried. _'Why is she sad? We got the place out of commission.'_

"Why don't we do that more often?" I hear Pearl say. Looking at the three of them happy and feeling good about the fusion, then to Amethyst, and it clicks. _'Oh.'_

While the others start to get ready to go home, I crouch down next to Amethyst and place a hand on her back. She looks up at me with a confused expression while I give her a smile. "She was a bit flashy for my tastes."

That earns me a smile.

* * *

Back home feels good now after worrying about the idea of a reinforcement message being sent to Homeworld. Still, hopefully with our actions at the hub should quell any sort of repeat actions by Peridot.

*Zzzzzzztt*

"Son of a—" I growl as my TV starts freaking out again. With a lazy move, I grab one of the cushions on my couch and toss it under my TV just as it falls off its holder on the wall again. It lands harmlessly on the cushion but the static continues to appear on the screen. "Is she that desperate and stupid that she needed to go back to okay she is that stupid." I opened up my computer and because of the previous search, the same spot was highlighted again. "Ughhhh." I groan.

My phone begins ringing so I answer it. "Marcus! It's—"

"I know Steven." I groan out and walk over to the coat rack I have next to the door. Pulling away a bunch of coats I'm never going to use out of the way, I grab the KIVAARI sniper rifle I have hidden and am out the door. "I'll be there soon."

* * *

"Huh, I was kind of hoping I was wrong." I comment as we all stare up at the glowing somewhat reconstructed tower.

"You're not that lucky." Garnet comments with a tap on my shoulder and gets into position with Pearl. "I hope you're ready."

"You know I am." She replies with a raised arm.

Like the plan from last time, Garnet and Pearl are going to fuse into Sardonyx in order to dismantle the tower again. I have my reservations about this form of destruction on the hub considering all Sardonyx does is dismantle and take I apart. The fact that we are here shows that Peridot was able to reconstruct the communication hub 'after' we dealt with it the first time. If Sardonyx dismantles this place again, what's to stop Peridot from coming back and fixing it up again.

Then again, I'm not too keen on bringing out Sugilite any time soon so for now, I'll follow the rule of three and see if she comes back again. Pearl and Garnet finish up their dance quickly this time and the fusion comes out. "What's this? An encore performance?" She asks to no one in particular. She proceeds to lean down towards Amethyst, Steven and I. "Just couldn't get enough of me, could you?" She says somewhat cheekily before letting out a small laugh. "What are we waiting for? Let the show begin!" Waiting no further, she jumps into the air towards the tower. My eyes follow her for a bit until I notice something weird. Amethyst begins walking away in a similar sad way like the last time we were here. Steven and I look at each other before staring back at the gem and she starts… singing.

" _Maybe you're better off with her  
I think she's better for you  
I forgot how great it felt to be us  
Guess I got carried away"_

She sings with an air of sadness Looking back to the tower, we see Sardonyx continue to dismantle the tower before focusing back on the sad gem.

" _I had to use you to make me feel strong  
But I don't care about that now  
I see a tower built out of my mistakes  
And it all comes crashing down_

" _Is there something I can doo-oo  
Is there something I can doo-oo-oo  
Is there something I can doo-oo  
Can I make it up to you?"_

With a sad demeanor, she finishes her song and crouches down in a heap once Sardonyx finishes her attack. Steven and I both stare at her, unsure of how to best comfort the gem in her depressed state. _'She regrets having lost control being Suguilite. The blame could have been as much Garnet as well… but she blames herself._ ' I think. She definitely seems bummed out on the whole thing about not fusing anymore. I really don't know how to—

A small tug on my shirt makes me look down. Steven I next to me and motions me to lean down. Crouching to his level, he talks in a low voice. "I think I have an idea on how we can help." He tells me with a hopeful look. I stare at him for a bit until I look to where Sardonyx is unfusing back to Pearl and Garnet. My attention shifts to Amethyst who's still sad and looking down before giving Steven a firm look.

"Whatcha' got?"

* * *

I have to admit, his strategy wasn't all that bad. Which is why both I, Amethyst and Steven appear back at the communications hub with Lion. "Peridot's been back here twice. So the odds are good she'll come back again, right? Bam!" Steven begins to say and accentuates the bam by slamming his fist into his palm. "That's when we'll get her!" He says excitedly.

"I can get behind that." I say as I get off of Lion and pull out my KIVAARI rifle.

"Yeah, bam!" Amethyst is just as enthusiastic by Steven and repeats the same motion.

"Garnet will be so impressed!"

"And then she'll think I'm cool again!"

"Calm down you two." I mutter loud enough for them to hear. Their incredibly happy and giddy demeanors lessen and they look at me. "Let's make sure we get her first. And she'll spot us a mile out if we stand here out in the open like this. We need to find a hiding place." I tell them. Because of how flat this place is and massive it all is, then unless we lay on our stomachs we'll be exposed. Even worse considering Lion's size. I continue to scan the area around for any sort of cover until Steven tugs on my shirt again. He points to behind where we came from and I can't help but smile. "Perfect."

Thanks to Steven, we now have a decent place to cover and hide ourselves from anyone coming towards us. I keep my eye trained on my scope and look around for any sort of movement on the horizon. I don't have a vector as to where Peridot will be coming from so I have to keep my spinning around for any sort of movement by her. For awhile it's just me doing the recon until Steven pulls out a telescope and pushes it into the hole in the rock and does some looking on his own. "Nothing, more nothing…" He grumbles from the opposite direction he's looking in from me. _'I know Steven. There's been nothing the last—'_ "Ah! There she is!"

Without wasting a beat, I twist myself around and slam myself against the rock next to Steven and zoom in on our target. With a satisfying click, I load in a round as I see what Steven sees. My finger is about to depress the trigger until I stop and relax my very tense body. "Steven."

"Yeah?"

"That's a cactus."

He puts down the telescope for a second before looking through it again and this time zooms in. "Oh." He moans embarrassed.

"Don't beat yourself up over it. It IS a very weird cactus. I was almost fooled by it too." I tell him with a smirk. Out of the corner of my eye, that seems to make him feel better as he goes back down to Amethyst while I take out the loaded bullet. I wasn't kidding about the cactus being weird though. That thing has an almost identical shaped head and body like Peridot's with its 'arms' up. From a distance, it's an almost uncanny resemblance to the person of our interest but up close, it's just a unique kind of cactus. "Weird." I mutter myself with a head shake and continue my recon around us. About an hour or so passes and while I am doing this, Amethyst, Lion and Steven are on the sand just lazing about. Steven is doing something with his fingers but I have no idea what it is. I tune out the conversation they strike up in favor of focusing on our target. _'Nothing… Mmm, where is she now?'_ I grumble in my head as I try to make sense of all this crap. Again, nothing happens and we are all sitting here with our thumbs up our—!

"Woah!"

"What?!" Amethyst and I cry out simultaneously at Steven's gasp.

"I think I saw something!" He quickly explains and looks through his telescope again. Bringing my rifle up to bear, I look where he's looking and hope that it's the real deal now. For a second I don't see anything but that is proven wrong as a mass starts moving towards us. More specifically, the tower.

"Perfect." I mutter and graze my finger over the trigger.

"It's Peridot's escape pod!"

' _Wait, what?'_ I think in confusion as take my eye off the scope before looking again and zooming in. True to what he said, a familiar looking green ball floats along the plain. "You… your right." I mutter in confusion.

"Did she fix it somehow?" Steven asks but I shake my head. _'That's not right.'_

"But I thought we had it!" Amethyst states firmly and I agree with her.

"We do… but more specifically, I do." We stare at the floating ball for a bit before looking at each other. "I-It should locked away in my base! Ready for me to salvage it." I mutter.

"Could she have stolen it?" Steven asks but I shake my head no.

"No. I would have gotten an alarm from my droids on any intruders. The only ones I have specifically designated as friendly is us, Pearl, Garnet, your dad, Connie and all of my droids are in my base! The countermeasures I have in place should have kept her out!" I state firmly and crossly before my features turn to disbelief. "At least, I think they should."

"Shh, look." Steven stops us from talking and points to the tower. The escape pod uses some sort of tractor beam like device and grabs the fallen pieces of the tower we tore off the tower and begins placing them back in their places. "Woah, she's lifting the pillar guys, and she's fixing the hub." He tells us while still looking through his telescope. I load in one of the rounds into the chamber and aim at the target. Like it was with my AK the first time, I don't think I can pierce its hull as easy, even though I have a different caliber. _'Hopefully she gets off soon.'_ I follow her as she moves along the tower until she stops at the very top of it. "What's she doing up there? Enhance!" I give Steven a weird look at him thinking that will actually make the telescope zoom in. Looking back up, she gets out of the pod, giving me a clear and perfect line of sight to her.

"Nice. Now adjust for distance, elevation, no wind… aaaannnnndd…" I draw out the word, getting ready to fire… but stop at the weird but somewhat familiar body shape. "That's… not Peridot." I state.

"Your right." Steven agrees with me. "For some reason, Peridot kinda looks like…" Keeping my scope on the gem, my breath, and my heart, hitches as the gem turns around giving us a clear and unobstructed view of who it exactly is. Who it is that's been repairing the communication hub. "Pearl?" Steven questions out loud but its more of an answer to me.

"What? Lemme see!" Amethyst asks in confusion and takes Steven's telescope. I just let my rifle fall to my side in tired confusion. "Oh no." She says in a low voice, like she can't believe what she's seeing.

I can't either. "I… I don't… know what…" I stammer, unsure of what to say or make of all this.

"We should go." Amethyst proposes and Steven and I nod in agreement.

* * *

"Why would Pearl rebuild the hub? Maybe she's trying to study how it works?" Steven tries to make up an excuse for Pearl but Amethyst and I don't agree. After we caught Pearl in the act of repairing the communication hub, we immediately went home and just… waited. After we fell asleep, it's the next day and we are sitting in front of Steven's TV, trying to contemplate what it is we saw.

"No, I don't think that's it. That's your department isn't it?" Amethyst asks me and I nod.

"Yeah, it is. I scoured that thing as much as I can and the rest was just junk or served no use to me." I calmly explain to them. Letting out a frustrated sigh, I rub the bridge of my nose with two fingers. "No use to me… but a use to others. It also explains how she was able to get the escape pod so easy without raising any alarms."

"Maybe she's trying to get us more channels?" Steven proposes another idea as he turns on the TV but as usual theirs static. My hand on my face falls and slaps my knee and I give him a deadpan look.

"Steven, I could do that for you in five minutes if you let me."

"And I told you—"

"Oh, this is no good." A new voice pipes up. Much to our awkward and slightly nervous selves, Pearl, the root of what we are talking about, walks up while we were talking and gives a vague and somewhat fake gasp of surprise.

"What's wrong?" Steven says with nervousness and awkwardness just oozing from his voice, which makes me and Amethyst nervous as well that he'll blow it.

"It's Peridot." She doesn't buy it and continues with her bad acting. "She must've fixed the Communication Hub again!" At this point, Garnet walks up as the three of us that know the truth exchange worried glances. "Garnet, it's the hub again."

"She's evading my future vision. No matter how many times I try, I can't see us finding Peridot. Come on, team." Once she finishes ordering us, Garnet walks away and Pearl follows giddily. The rest of us however glance at each other before following. "Now, where's Lion?" Garnet asks out loud as she steps out onto the balcony.

"I think he's back at my place. Steven and I will get him. Let's go." Without much argument, or input from my brother, I quickly grab him and take him the warp pad.

"Whoa! Wha!" He cries out at my sudden movement before we stop ontop of it.

"Back in a sec!" I call back to the others before activating it. After the usual warp stream trip, we land back in front of my house and Lion is seen lying down in front of my house. He perks up upon seeing us and give a yawn.

"Lion!" Steven calls out the animals name happily and after wiggling out of my grasp, he jogs over to him and hugs his massive mane. "Good to see you. Sorry boy but we have another trip to make." He give the animal a sheepish and apologetic look, which the giant animal lets out a groan of annoyance before lowly getting up.

"Hold on a sec, bro. We need something else too." I pipe up to make sure he doesn't go galloping off too soon. I go in my front door and quickly spot the three duffel bags I packed this morning.

"What do we need?" Steven asks from outside.

"This!" I shout and toss one of them through the doorway.

"Oof!" Steven grunts as the massive bag of gear I packed slams into him, making him stumble back a little before clutching it tightly. "What is it?"

"That…!" I say as I hoist my other two bags over my shoulders. "And these, are hopefully going to stop these broadcast's once and for all."

* * *

After telling him that last bit, we went ahead and got the others before heading back to the others. I didn't tell anyone about what I packed because I wanted to play out how this is going to go but one thing for sure is that I am going to make sure that tower will not be repaired anytime soon, by anyone.

"I can't believe Peridot is giving us so much trouble!" My arms cross and I give a low groan at Pearl's actions. "But it hardly matters, right Garnet? We can disable this tower as many times as we need to, together! Okay? Okay. I'm ready. Are you ready?" She awkwardly says before getting into position for a fusion.

"I know what she's doing."

"Hm?

"You do?"

Steven and I question what Amethyst says but the second Pearl and Garnet are about to fuse, she shouts. "Stop!"

The two gems freeze and Pearl looks uneasily at Amethyst. "I-Is something the matter, Amethyst?"

"You-you shouldn't…"

"Pearl… we saw you." Steven hesitantly tells her.

"What?" Pearl asks confused and sweat drops. Her eyes glance over to me but as soon as our eyes meet, I close mine and give a sad head shake.

"You need to tell Garnet it was you!" Steven demands of the pale gem.

"I don't understand." Garnet says and looks to Pearl for answers.

Pearl meanwhile looks at the gem uneasily and sadly. "I'm sorry... I-It's just... so much fun being Sardonyx with you." She finally tells her the reason for the constant fusing they've had to do.

In a fit of surprise, Garnet drops Pearl onto the ground. "That's why I couldn't see us finding Peridot."

"Wait! Let me explain!" Pearl begins to say and plead but Garnet has none of it.

"You've been fixing the hub!" Garnet outright declares and begins to stalk upon Pearl, who the later begins to crawl and back away in fear. I begin to walk forward to hopefully make sure nothing bad happens but a hand grab from Amethyst stops me.

"It really was Peridot! T-The first time…" She hesitantly tells the fusion but it doesn't dissuade her anger in the least bit.

"You tricked me!"

"No! No, no, no, no! We just needed a reason to fuse! I just wanted to share a few more victories with you!"

"Those weren't victories!"

Before anymore could be said, "Wait, Garnet! You know, we're so much weaker than you! Fusing with you is like our one chance to feel... stronger!" Amethyst steps past me and voices her view on the matter but Garnet is still stone-faced about the betrayal Pearl enacted.

"Don't defend her! Peridot is out there somewhere and Pearl's been distracting us with... nothing!"

"Distacting us from what?!" I question out loud too. Their eyes are now focused on me. "I have been monitoring every possible signal I could find and keeping up to date on any suspicious activity and after the first hub broadcast, we've got nothing." I calmly explain to them what I know. While what Pearl did was wrong, I don't want Garnet to lead on with blind anger to the pale gem when it comes to fusion. _'I still remember what she did to me back at the control room of the Kindergarten.'_ "What she did was wrong but she didn't cause any harm."

"Stay out of this!" She yells at me with gritted teeth. I had a feeling she was going to snap so I don't flinch as much.

"Garnet…"

"That's enough!" Garnet yells one more time at Pearl while pointing an accusatory finger at her. She takes a moment to compose herself before giving both Amethyst and Pearl a cross look. "If you wanted to feel so powerful, why didn't you two just fuse into Opal more often? I'm sure you'll be plenty powerful with her!" Her voice begins to gain volume as she speaks.

"It's not the same."

"Why not?!"

"Because you are so much stronger than us by any means! The power we feel when 'we' fuse is not as strong as when fused with you. The only other time is with M—!" Pearl's ranting explanation dies off as she comes very close to revealing something.

Something between both her and I from what seems so long ago.

Garnet's face still retains its anger but there's a hint of curiosity from the small slip up of Pearl's words. "With… who?" She asks leaning in.

Pearl looks down at the ground, tears threatening to break from her eyelids… until she opens them and glance at me. All eyes are soon on me as I close mine and let out a low breathe of air. _'No… not now… why now?'_ I think hopelessly in my head. I'm still not worried about the fact that the two of us fused… what I am worried about is the absolute wrong time this could have come up in any conversation.

"You?" Amethyst's voice starts off confused but begins to take a turn of surprise. "You two fused?!"

"When?!" Now Steven is curious but more excited than everyone else.

Letting out another breath of air, I might as well explain. "At the Kindergarten."

"The Kindergarten?"

"The first time Steven and I saw it, when he and Amethyst…" I let the sentence trail, letting them get what happened that day. Amethyst looks down in slight sadness as she remembers the fight she and Pearl had. "After they left and the Iron Kings ambushed me, Pearl came back to help and save my life. Unfortunately, we were… ambushed and it just… happened." I finish giving the short explanation of how it was Pearl and I fused. She continues to look down but Garnet still seems confused by the whole thing.

"Wait, wait… you mean to tell me that the two of you fused, and you didn't bother telling us?!" Garnet's voice begins increasing in pitch until she's back to her angered self but this time its back on Pearl.

"Hey! Don't you DARE blame her for keeping this a secret!" I outright yell, focusing the attention off the already distraught gem. "I was the one that told her to not bother in telling you guys because we had bigger things to worry about!"

"You don't know how important it is that fusing is to us!" Garnet gestures to her and the others gems. "We were all so proud and ecstatic when Steven first fused… but you didn't bother to mention your first time because you didn't think it was important?!" She asks loudly and incredulously to me as she steps closer to me until our faces are right in front of each other.

"Well I'm sorry that's how you feel but I wanted to focus on the human gang organization sent to kill us!"

"Sent to kill YOU!"

"All of us!"

"STOP IT!" Amethyst pops up in between the two of us and pushes us away from each other. "This isn't getting us anywhere and we still have to deal with that!" Amethyst explains to us all as she points to the makeshift hub still glowing and standing.

With one last glare to me, Garnet growls and turns away. "Fine! Let's just get this over with and get out of here." She sneers and looks at the tower before back to Amethyst. "Amethyst, fuse with me."

"What?!" Now I ask incredulously and with surprise. _'She said Sugilite was benched! Is she do angry she's going to bring her out now?!'_

"But—!" Amethyst begins to say but is stopped as we can clearly hear Garnet's fists clench.

"Let's just get this over with." She grumbles and walks away from us.

Amethyst looks taken back by the request, still saddened by the whole thing of how Sugilite went berserk and even now, while she has the opportunity to fuse again, it's for the wrong reason. She looks up at me and I can't tell just from her appearance that she's uneasy about the whole thing. With a sigh, she begins trudging forward to meet with Garnet. "No."

Amethyst and Garnet freeze at my firm voice. After all the tension we just went through right now, it seems kind of stupid to start up another argument right now after things seemed to have somewhat calmed down but Sugilite is still a now for me. Garnet whirls around to me. "And why… should we not?" She asks with clenched fists.

With a smirk, I walk back to Lion and signal for Steven to follow with me. Getting the silent cues I give him, he opens up Lion's portal, reaches in and pulls out the bags I packed. Him grabbing one and I grab the other two, we walk over to Amethyst. "Because I have a better idea." I say out loud and place the bags down. Unzipping them, I smile at finally getting the chance to use my remote controlled IED's I developed the first time I was with gems. Grabbing a few remotes, I hand them to Steven and Amethyst, the later forming a giddy and happy look on his face and the former just a small smile. Placing all my RC cars and helicopters down with their respective remotes, I signal for the two of them to place each car and helicopter at points on the tower. Without letting me finish explaining, Steven immediately sends one of the more off-roady looking trucks barreling through the sand to the bottom of one of the legs. Amethyst and I begin using helicopters and placing them all at various levels of the structure.

The next few minutes are spent with the three of us taking different remotes and controlling different RC's to any point on the tower. Steven controls the ground ones, Amethyst the air, and I use whatever I grab. While they place them at whatever point they feel like, I make sure to place mine at specific strategic points I know can do the most damage and topple this thing the best. All the while I feel Garnet boring her eyes into the back of my head as we work but I just keep a calm demeanor and work on this. Soon, everything is in place and the structure is firmly littered with all my explosives. Once Steven and Amethyst grab the remotes and bags, we all move back enough until we are far enough away from the impending explosion.

Pulling out my phone and after making sure all the bombs are connected, I start the countdown. "Alright… fire in the hole in 3... 2… 1!"

*Beep*

With a touch on the screen, a beep follows, and the explosives go off.

In a veritable train of explosions, the bottom ones went off first, then just as quickly the shockwave activates the rest higher up as more of them continue to go off. The drab light and white colored structure immediately turns red as it is engulfed in flames, the force of the rapid explosions throwing sand and smoke all over the place, forcing Amethyst, Steven and Pearl to bring their arms up to protect their eyes from the debris but Garnet stare impassively at the explosion, a neutral expression on our faces. After almost half a minute passes before the fire surrounding the tower dissipates. Once it clear we see the devastation my explosives did to the structure. All the pieces that could have been pulled off it were thrown off away from it and scattered around the place. The firm columns that are stuck in the ground and fused together have been cracked, broken and splintered heavily, therefore requiring some work in order to get this thing working again.

With the tower fallen and the pieces scattered all over from the explosions, I walk over to one particular piece that fell close to us. Not wanting it to be used anymore, I walk right up to it and concentrate, focusing my power into both my fists. A small visible whirl of air and wind begins to spin around both my hands softly and barely visible at first but gets stronger and stronger. My fists clench tightly and I grit my teeth as more and more power collects into my hands. At their peak, I clench both my hands together into one giant fist and bring it over my head. "Raaaah!" I yell as I bring my hands down roughly. Once my fists impact the stone-like structure, a large cloud of dust and sand kicks up all around me as my hit breaks the entire column in half and splinters pieces off the rest of it. A small amount of silence follows leaving the only thing I and everyone else can hear is the settling sand and my heavy breathing. Very slowly, I stand straight up and untangle my hands from each other before turning around. I walk out of the dust cloud towards my friends. My face remains impassive as Steven and Amethyst look at the destruction in awe. Garnet has a small scowl on her and Pearl still looks heartbroken about everything.

When I walk towards them, I continue walking until I pass Garnet. "You finished?"

I stop at her voice. We stay silent for a few seconds before I continue walking towards Lion. "You forget me Garnet." I call back. Turning around, I see that everyone is looking at me as I give a smirk. I start to walk backwards with my arms outstretched to my sides. "I am a fusion." Without stopping I lift my sleeves to reveal my two gems. "A forced fusion."

* * *

The next day rolls around, albeit slow for some, fast for others. Steven and Amethyst sit in front of his TV and watch another episode of Crying Breakfast Friends but the mood remains sour for them.

"Please, forgive me!" Crying Pear on the TV says to his friend Sad Spoon.

"Of course I forgive you!" Sad Spoon tells Crying Pear and the two of them hug to comfort each other but continue to cry.

As Marcus sits below them on the couch, cleaning one of his rifles, Pearl walks into the Beach house and not a second later, Garnet warps in as well. The two of them walk by each other without making eye contact. Pearl's head remains aimed at the floor while Garnet brushes her off. As Garnet walks outside, Pearl is left visibly hurt by everything. She glances over at Marcus but the hybrid doesn't take his eyes off his work. With a sigh, she proceeds to the temple and walks into her room. Once the door closes, Marcus stops his cleaning of his weapon and looks forward in front of him. Without a word, he stands up, rag in one hand, the gripping the barrel of his gun in the other and walks over to the warp pad. The whirring sound of the warp activating signals his departure from the Beach house.

"Man, it sure would be nice if things worked out the way they do in cartoons." Amethyst says sadly.

"Yeah. It would." Steven agrees with her on that. He picks up the TV remote, and turns off his television.

* * *

I trudge into my house and slam my door closed, cracking the wood frame. Very carefully, I put back my KIVAARI on the rack and toss the rag on my counter. For a few seconds I stand in the middle of my house not doing anything. Slowly, I turn my head until I stare at the TV hanging in the living room noticing its askew. Calmly I grab its sides and nudge it back till its straight again. Taking a step back, I stare at the black blank screen again.

Almost a minute passes in complete silence.

I grab the TV, tear it out of the wall, bring it over my head and with a cry of anger I toss it against the window.

 **I am so sorry everyone and am grateful for all of you and your patience. I stretched out on the time of this way too much and I'm sure I could have done better and gotten this out sooner but I didn't.**

 **Good news is, my research essays for my classes are done and in only a few weeks I just have to work on some tests and that's about it. I'm not sure if I'll be taking classes in the summer and even if I do, chances are it'll just be one class.**

 **I've also spent a ton of time playing Mass Effect: Andromeda and despite some of the issues it has, I'm enjoying it. Well, enjoyed it. I already beat the game on the normal difficulty and after some time spent away from the game, I'm gonna play it again on the top hardest difficulty there is. For now though I've taken to playing Fallout 4 on the survival difficulty. Already I'm at level 47, still need to find Virgil at the glowing sea, and I am no longer hyperventilating when I go into combat because at the beginning just one or two shots from a hunting rifle would kill me. Now I can tank a fair amount of hits before I start to get worried about health. This means I no longer half to keep looking around for enemies that might sneak up on me. Still an interesting, rewarding, and challenging experience that should make me feel accomplished once I finish it. I just need to know 'who' I am going to finish this story with. I'm not sure which faction I want to end it on right now but hopefully soon I come to a decision.**

 **Interesting note I found, the Gatling Laser is considered Radiation weapon. So perks like the Nuclear Physicist should be able to work on the gun.**

 **Alright that seems like enough ranting. Sorry again everyone for the delay and hopefully I won't take as long on the next chapter. Especially since the next couple ones are going to be quite interesting to say the least.**

 **As always everyone, have a great day, take care, and have fun reading.**


	47. 45 Keystone Motel

My eyes glide over the screen again and again as my fingers continuously depress the keys rapidly. The coding that glides across the screen from my work should make sure to turn into the toughest security parameters I have ever made. A combination of the security measures used by modern day Homeworld tech, and with a bit of human ingenuity mixed in.

It's been a few days since the disaster that was the reformed communication hub. It was stupid of me to not tell the others about the fusion but I didn't think of it much at the time. Pearl wasn't exactly the best either in situation considering she basically exploited the situation to get more fusion time out of Garnet. While Garnet and I don't approve of her actions, at least I'm not outright ignoring and giving her the cold shoulder. Garnet isn't exactly paying any attention to me either and it sucks. It's hard for us to try and be a team like usual when half of us are either ignoring or hate the others.

I lightly chuckle and shake my head. _'And to think Peridot, your simple message did so much more damage than you could have possibly realized.'_

"What's so funny?"

"Hm?" I look away from my computer and look at my brother sitting next to me with a curious look on his face. "Oh, nothing. Just… something." I mumble, not really comfortable with telling Steven my dark sense of humor.

"Oh… ooooohhhhkaaaaayy. So how did it feel fusing with—"

"Ehhhh." I let out a groan as Steven continues with his barrage of questions at me. Ever since he learned of Serpentine, he hasn't let up with the questions to both me and Pearl on how the experience was. Since he fused with Connie, he has some idea of fusion but the idea of fusing with the gems is somewhat different and he does not want to be left out of the loop. More so he's been badgering me about it. While he drones on and on question after question, I kind of zone out and focus on my security measure. It's surprisingly easy when he's been doing this for almost a couple hours straight. Normally I'd be in my house working on this stuff in peace and quiet, but after my… tantrum my house is in need of some repairs. Repairs my droids are working on right now and will be for awhile. _'I gotta make another entrance soon to my base.'_

The sound of the warp pad activating gets both of our attention from what we are doing. Looking at the person who activated it, Steven and I see it's Pearl. "Pearl!" Stevens outburst and run to her makes her flinch at the sudden action but calms down at seeing Steven. "Where have you been?" He asks her.

"Uh, looking for Peridot! For a few days straight..." She begins to say sadly before staring at Steven. "Steven, I know I might have... disappointed... all of you. I know Garnet is very upset with me, but I'm going to prove to her that she can trust me again!" Once she finishes talking, she finally notices me and walks over before sitting next to me. "And Marcus I am sooooo sorry for putting you on the spot like that. I had no intention to mention our fusion and it just slipped out I—" She frantically starts apologizing to me but with a simple raise of my hand, I stop her.

For a second, all is silent around us until we start to hear footsteps on the wood planks outside. My hand goes back to my laptop before I talk again. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

To accentuate who I mean, Garnet walks in through the front door. Seeing the fusion, Pearl perks up and bounds for her. "Oh! Garnet! I was just looking for Peridot! She's bound to be somewhere, right? Any new ideas?" She practically pleads to the tall gem. Garnet says nothing to her and simply walks past her. Seeing how easily she's been brushed off, Pearl looks to the floor in sadness. "I'm sorry."

That small apology Pearl just uttered stops Garnet from walking any further. Silence is evident again until she breathes in deeply before letting it out. "Have you found anything else out?" She asks out loud to the same direction she's facing, not looking at anyone. Steven and Pearl are confused by her undirected question but I know she's talking to me.

"Nothing's come up. I'll keep looking." I keep my response short and just like Garnet, I don't look at her either, just focusing on my work. She cranes her head downwards but a new voice gets our attention.

"Who wants to go on a road trip?!" Greg suddenly bursts through the door with some paper in hand. His happy loud question completely contrasts with the unhappy expressions we all wear as we look at him. "Umm… Is this a bad time?"

"Well…"

"No. Please continue." Garnet interrupts me and walks over to our guest.

"Well I gotta drive over to the next state, Keystone."

"You mean the Keystone state?" Pearl asks to clarify.

' _Keystone… quaint. I hunted a few monsters there when I was alone and before I met the gems.'_ I think pleasantly. Not so much pleasant the experience but more so on how my eventual meet up with gems came to be. When I answered that alert for here, I thought it was going to be just another monster and that's it. Things may be tense now but I have no regrets in meeting this awesome team.

"Right, the state named Keystone. I met a guy on an internet message board who's selling car wash brushes for real cheap! I just gotta meet him in Keystone and pick em' up." Greg explains to us why he's going.

"I don't like those brushes, they feel weird on your fur." Steven mentions off-handedly, making me look at him confused.

"Weren't you an out of control cat-monster when you went through the wash?" I ask, remembering that incident, especially since it was the first time I met his dad.

"Yeah. What's your point?" He asks looking at me. I don't have an immediate response to his question. My mouth simply opens and closes multiple times like a fish as I fail to say something. I opt to close my mouth and purse my lips.

"Well, that aside, do you like motels?" Greg asks his son.

"Probably!"

' _No. Too many roaches and squeaky bed-springs.'_ My body shivers at the recollection of bugs.

"Think you'd like to stay at a motel with your favorite dad?" He asks him with a smirk.

"I don't know if you're my favorite... " Steven playfully tells him.

"What? Huh... oh, you kidder! Come here!" He's confused at first but gets his sons joke. In their playfulness, Steven runs and jumps into his dads arms.

"I can't wait to get room service!" Steven happily declares. I can't help but chuckle.

"You're thinking of a hotel, we're going to a motel." Greg accentuates where it is their going. "It'll have a pool, and free ice, and it's right next to the best diner in the world!" He hypes the place up as best he can. I doubt the diner part is true but at this point, I think he just wants his son to join him.

"I'm coming too." And apparently Garnet too.

"What?" Pearl ask confused.

"Huh?" I do as well.

"Even better!" Steven however is ecstatic about it.

"Hey, Garnet, I know I'm talking this place up, but... it ain't exactly the Ritz." Greg tries to whisper to Garnet so Steven doesn't hear. Amazingly it works despite Steven literally being right next to him in his arms.

"I'll be the judge of that." Garnet remains unperturbed by it and still wants to go. Pearl and I look at the fusion in slight surprise. It's definitely surprising considering this is the first time I've seen her smile since all this… stuff happened with all of us.

"Well in that case… road trip!"

"ROAD TRIP!"

"Road trip." All three of them give their own enthusiasm of the trip, Steven's being the loudest.

"Wonderful! We'll make sure Amethyst knows that you guys won't be around for awhile." Pearl informs them.

"Actually, I think I'm gonna need your help Marcus."

My typing comes to a stop and I look up at Greg in confusion. "Me?"

"Yeah. You think you can bring your truck with us? I'm not sure how many brushes I'm gonna buy and I might need your truck for transport. What'd you say?" He asks. Steven immediately gives me a pleading look from behind his dad. Garnet's face remains neutral about the idea so I can't gouge what she wants to do about it.

With a sigh, I close my laptop and give him a smile. "Alright, I'll go."

"Yaaaay!" Steven cheers.

"Great!"

"But you gotta give me some time to fix the back of my truck. The remains of my turret stand is still on it and it could get in the way of anything going in the back." I explain to him what I need to do. After the fight with Homeworld, the MG's I had on my makeshift technical were almost entirely destroyed when Jasper threw that boulder at it. So now's their a tall hunk of metal sticking out of the back of my truck without a purpose. If car wash brushes are going in the back, I'm gonna need to remove it.

"Oh. How long will that take?"

"I'd say about a couple hours." Both he and Steven look a little sad at the delayed road trip but I give them a reassuring smile. "But I can do that myself. Why don't you all go on ahead and I can follow soon after once I finish?" I propose to them.

"Yeah! That'd be great! Can we dad?" Steven asks his dad.

* * *

"Uhhhh, well… Garnet?" He calls the gems name in unsurness and looks over at her. Since Steven is cool with the idea, he just needs to ask their other guest to make sure everything is cool. Garnet's face still remains stoic as ever but ever so slowly she nods her head yes. "Okay then. Sounds like a plan. We'll go on ahead then." He finishes saying and heads over to the door.

"Great! I'll stay here and—" Before Pearl can finish talking, Garnet walks past her and goes out the door before she can finish talking. "Fine!" Pearl gives a strained smile at the brush off she just received. "Well… goodbye!"

"This is going to be fun! Right, Dad?" Steven asks his dad but Greg gives a weird look in return.

"Uhhh, yeah it is. Fun." He replies unsure and uncomfortable about the whole thing but moves to the door regardless with his son. Just before he steps out, he turns back to me. "Don't take too long now. We're still going to that diner for some mad eats." He tells me with happy enthusiasm and I can't help but chuckle.

"Don't worry, I'll work quick." I tell him as I shut my laptop off and stand up. "See you guys in a bit."

"See ya."

"Bye Marcus!" Steven calls out to me just as the door closes.

With a nod, I head over to the warp pad and mentally start going over what I need to get rid of the piece on my truck. Just before I go, I catch Pearl's expression before I teleport. I give her a reassuring smile before I go.

"Nnnnnnn… almost… there!" I shout in triumph once the bar of metal falls off the stand. I shut off the welding tool I have in hand and pull the mask off me. Grabbing the piece of metal, I chuck it out of the back and take my equipment before closing it. Once the back is clear and I push the door up to close it, the warp pad activates. Turning back, I see that it's Pearl. "Oh, hey Pearl." I greet her as I lug my gear and place it inside my house before closing the door. As she walks up to me, I can't help but take note of how she looks really uncomfortable about something what with her head cast downwards and rubbing her left arm with her right hand. "Something up?" I ask her.

For a second, she doesn't say anything but eventually she does. "I… I'm still… not on good terms with her… am I?" She asks sadly and she doesn't have to tell me who she's talking about. Mirroring her emotion, I nod sadly. She sighs in response. "Since you'll meet her… almost alone, I was hoping maybe you can… I don't know, talk to her if you can? You've always been the logical one of all of us and I was hoping maybe you can try to smooth things over between us." She asks of me to do. From the way how things have been between the two of them, it is pretty bad to be truthful. Pearl's nearly killing herself with her constant lone wolf tactics of hunting for Peridot and Garnet's silent demeanor isn't helping morale either. My relationship with both of them could be better as well. Pearl still feels bad dragging me into their argument during the tower and feels the need to 'make it up' to me and Garnet doesn't look at me as much. She talks to me… occasionally but it's not an ideal way of doing things.

"I can try but to be honest, she's not really looking forward to any conversations between the two of us. Compared to our relationship and yours with her, mine is just barely better." I tell the reality of it all. She looks down again in sadness at my chances of convincing her are pretty slim. Looking to reassure her, I place a hand on her shoulder, making her look up at me. I smile, "But I'll do what I can."

Her worried and sad demeanor turns to relief and happiness as she breaks out into a wide grin and tears threaten to break through her eyes. In response, she hugs me tightly and sniffles. Smiling as well, I return the hug. "Thank you. That's all I can ask."

"No problem, it's what I do." We hug for a few more seconds before breaking it and taking a step back. "Alright, I better get going before it gets too dark." I say as I look up at the dusk setting around us.

"That's probably for the best." She agrees and walks back over to the warp pad as I get inside my truck and turn it on. "Have a safe trip!" She waves me off. I smile and return the wave with one of my own.

"Thanks! See you soon!" I reply and shift into reverse just as the warp pad activates.

From there, it's just a matter of going out of town, onto the interstate and plugging in the route to where I need to go.

Before long, hours pass in blissful silence and night has already painted the landscape around me. As I drive down the dark roadway, I can't help but yawn as the long continuous road time is tiring me out. "Geez, this is boring." I can't help but groan. With being along and all, the road time is just one long boring journey. A few more minutes pass and I come upon a T-intersection with the turn going to my left and the straight is ahead of me. As I slow my truck to a halt at the red light, I take note of just how dark everything is around me, especially the dense woody forest area to my right. Now that I have a reprieve on my journey to Keystone, my thoughts start to delve back into our team and how bad things seem. _'This is so bad. What Pearl did was selfish and stupid on different levels and Garnet was hit the most by it. Because of her unintentional mention of me, I am also on Garnet's list of people she hates. Granted I'm not as much being ignored as Pearl is but it's still not ideal. While I did promise Pearl I'd talk to Garnet and hopefully try to smooth things over, I honestly have no idea exactly how I am going to go about it. Yes I can go about the logical route and explain to her why she can't stay made forever… but that isn't an ideal plan. She's not a robot, even though she sometimes acts like one, and if she agrees to what I say, her emotions can be left uncheck. Resulting in some… bad outbursts.'_ Moments from when Garnet freaked out are still somewhat fresh in my mind, if my rubbing my throat is anything to go by. "I'm gonna need a better plan." I grumble and let out another sigh. "Hopefully things will work out."

The light turns green and I hit the gas. As my truck slowly rolls forward, I look to the left and my eyes widen.

* * *

"Hm?" Sapphire places a hand on the side of her head. After hers and Ruby's… debate, on what Pearl did, the two decided to separate and try to calm down. While Ruby is outside fuming and evaporating the pool, Sapphire has no means to think or stew in her own thoughts while in the hotel room.

The benefit to seeing the future means that she 'knows' everything will be alright. All she has to do is wait and let things run their course and everything will be fine.

Unfortunately, occasional flashes of new future visions will plague her mind and while some of them don't amount to much, there have been some instances where they will prove to be correct, throwing her off guard. While she's fused with Ruby to make Garnet, her future vision powers are somewhat diminished in comparison to being alone, not that should would prefer to be alone and away from Ruby, even now. Now that her and Ruby are… not on speaking terms her future visions are coming back full force with additional results. This vision was a mix match of images that seemed both good and bad. There was… a person collapsing, crying, hurt, screaming and… red. Lots of red.

Before she can make much more sense of the vision, the door to the hotel room opens. "Uhhh, who makes square pizz- Holy moly!" Before Steven can finish his rant about the infamous square pizzas, the full effect of the rooms slowly frozen ice crystallizing structure hits him. He clutches both his arms on his shoulders in an effort to heat himself up from the sudden rush of cold. "I forgot how cold it was." Steven says out loud, examining the room around him for a second until he sees Sapphire on the bed. Even though she heard the door open, she doesn't really regard Steven all that much and the hand that's clutching her head clenches her hair tightly and begins to shake. "Uhh, Sapphire? Are you okay?" He asks worriedly.

"Hm? Huh?" Sapphire, snapped out of her thoughts, looks at Steven.

"I asked if your okay. You were sort of… shaking, a little." He tells her hesitantly.

"Oh sorry. Just thinking about something."

"Oh." He looks around a bit before looking back at her. "Doooeees it involve the futu—"

"Maybe you should go back to your dad and finish that pizza. It looks weird but its good." She interrupts him and gives him a smile. "Trust me."

"Oh, alright. If you're sure your alright,"

"I am."

"Then I'll go ahead and go." He walks back to the door and begins to close it on his way out. "Good night." He quickly pokes his head back in and tell her before going outside to finish off the pizza.

Sapphire stares at the door for a few more seconds until her frown disappears and she tries to make sense of her the vision. "What… is…?" She moans.

* * *

"Wow. Sapphire was right. This does taste alright. I can't tell the difference between triangle pizza and square pizza." Steven happily continues munching on the piece of pizza while they sit in the back of Greg's van.

"See I told you." His dad says and takes a bite. "So, is everything all… messed up between those two still?" Greg says while looking at the rapidly boiling pool of water nearby, along with the muttered rants of a certain Ruby.

Steven looks at the pool, then the hotel door before looking down. "Yeah, kind of."

Seeing his son sad, Greg looks down as well before he straightens back up and pats his son the back. "Ahhh, don't worry about it son. For now it's getting late so why don't we finish up this pizza, turn in and when we get some of that awesome breakfast, we'll figure out what's wrong, okay?"

"Okay!" Steven happily agrees and takes a large a bite out of his slice. Greg chuckles and joins his son in finishing the pizza.

Half an hour later, only a couple slices remain before they have to turn into bed. In the van that is because apparently after seeing ice form under the door of their hotel room, neither of them are in the mood to sleep on ice beds. The van will work out enough for them.

"Huh, I wonder where's Marcus?" Steven asks out of the blue.

Pausing from taking another bite, Greg looks down the road from which they came from. "I don't know. I was hoping he would have gotten here by now." He says and eats some more.

"I'll try calling him." Steven proposes and pulls out his phone. Hitting Marcus's number he has on speed dial, he puts it on speaker so they can both talk.

The phone rings a couple times before a voice is heard. **"The number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time. Please call again later."** An automated message is their only response.

Both father and son look at each other confused. "That's weird. He always answers." Steven muses as he puts his phone away.

"Maybe he couldn't answer on the road. You know those laws about driving and using a phone at the same time. Besides, he might have just gone into a blind spot. Parts of the road tend to disconnect people. I wouldn't be too worried about it." Greg tries to reassure his son and continues eating his pizza.

Steven just stares at the slice in his hands for a few more seconds, thinking. _'He's… not wrong. He's good but he's also careful. I'm sure he's just being careful at night. He's always careful.'_ Remembering how often his brother has been so paranoid and careful at nearly every opportunity, he shrugs his shoulders and finish off the slice before grabbing the last. "I'm sure he's fine.

He bites.

* * *

An 18-wheeler truck stays parked in the middle of the road. The massive machine blocking all three roads as it stays stopped but still running, a large massive slightly dented bull bar grill and it's lights shining right in front of a destroyed metal barrier. The trailers back slowly creaks open before both doors slam open and bodies start jumping out clutching assault rifles and shotguns. Half a dozen guys dressed in matching dark clothing and masks, run to the front of the truck and stare down the broken barrier piece. Their silhouettes from the trucks headlights cast shadows on the trees and the newly created path in front of them. One-by-one they all jump off the raised road and start clambering down the beaten and broken path. Some run straight down a small jagged path of rocks and dirt while others jump, vault and duck over broken trees to get to their destination.

Not even a minute of ducking and weaving before they come across the crash site. What lies before them is an upturned badly beaten and almost completely destroyed truck with one of its doors and three tires missing. Four guys move around and immediately train their sights on the driver side door while the other two get to work. One pulls out a crowbar and with ease, he snaps the broken door open for him and his partner. Their target is in his seat, limp, cut, bruised and hanging by the seatbelt he wears. With a quick two finger press to his neck, they confirm he's still alive but unconscious. Grabbing a knife, they cut his belt and he hits the roof with a thud. While the four continue to keep their weapons on the unconscious target, the other two drag him out and lay him a good distance away from the wreckage.

"We got him." One of the two says as he looks at the others. "We should get out of here before some happens to come on by—"

"He's waking up."

A plethora of guns cocking follow the interrupted statement as they watch the slightly twitching body. Very slowly, he tries to lift his head and open his eyes.

*SMACK*

He goes limp again as the first guy talking delivers a punch straight to his face, knocking him out. "Not anymore." He says firmly and stands up. "Alright. Contain him and clean the area. Let's move people!" He orders them all. With professional-like movement, two guys holster their guns and start zip-tying his arms and legs before taking him back to the semi-trailer.

The rest get to work on the scene. One of them grabs a large bowie knife and stabs it through the gas tank under the truck before cutting a large swatch through it, opening it up and leaving the gasoline content free to the environment. Another starts pouring more car gasoline all over the place, leading a short distance from where the truck was crashing through earlier to around it and finally at the newly opened gas tank. Once the areas been properly soaked, everyone gets back to the truck until the leader stands in front of the trail of accelerant with a single match in hand. Flicking his thumb on the head, the match ignites in a small blaze but that's nothing compared to what it ignites. Dropping it, the leader starts walking back as the trail starts igniting, rapidly burning trail towards the truck.

Making it back to the truck, he hits the driver side door of the truck before sprinting to the back and grabbing onto the outstretched hand as the truck starts moving. Once he's pulled into the back, he and his helper pull the doors closed before locking them tightly.

The 18-wheeler travels off into the night with its cargo.

*BOOOOM!*

A large fireball lights up the night sky behind them but the truck continues unimpeded.

Watching the fireball for a second, the leader looks back and with a nod to his men, they start pulling out chains, shackles and a medical bag filled with sedatives to keep their 'guest' stuck and asleep for their journey.

For him, his week long journey.

 **Well, it seems things aren't going to go well for Marcus now are they… again. In any case people, I have some good news and bad news for you all. Good news is, with classes being over within the next few weeks, I don't think we should expect anymore month long delays between chapters for this story so that's going to be a relief. Chances are the next few chapters may not be going to be around 8,000 words so they can possibly be out sooner than an actual 8k worded chapter but we'll see as I write them.**

 **The bad news, more for you all watching this story than my others, is I'm going to focus my efforts on my other stories since I feel I sort of neglected them. This story will still be worked on, never forget that, but it'll be a little slow going compared to before. Or now. I don't know. I apologize for my sparse chapter uploads this beginning year alone. Kind of sucks for you all considering I just dropped this chapter on you all with the plot and all but, guess we'll see how things go.**

 **Alright with the updates for my stories out of the way, now onto my life. I bought the DLC's Automatron and Far Harbor for Fallout 4 and they have been insurmountable in helping me progress through the survival difficulty I have set up. The robots, especially Ada, are awesome and make sure that I or they don't die as easily. The weapons for Far Harbor are awesome as well, especially the Radium rifle. It helps because I got the nuclear physicist perk to the max, so all radiation weapons do double damage and since it also does ballistic damage, I'm not longer stuck with using the Gamma gun on specific enemies. With that said, things are alright for the moment all in all.**

 **As always everyone, have a good day and have fun reading.**


	48. 46 Captured

*Honk*Honk*

"Yaaaaay!" Steven cheers loudly as the large semi-truck passing by blows its horn after he pumped his arm in the air. With a wide smile he watches the vehicle drive by before turning back to his dad and Garnet. "That was fun." He comments as he walks as his dad finishes securing the car wash brushes to the top of his van. He is about to pass Garnet but the questioning and puzzled look on her face stops him. "Something wrong, Garnet?"

"Hm?" She says confused brought out of her thoughts by the kid. Looking down at him, she shakes her head. "No. Everything's good, but…"

"But what?"

"That truck… I swear I saw it somewhere." She muses. Since the trip here to the Keystone state she has seen plenty of vehicles coming to and fro, but since her… debate, her visions both future and present have been mixed and matched all over the place so it'll take some time for her to be able to properly sort which is which.

That truck however may have been one of them.

"You think?" Steven asks her while looking back at the truck as it travels away from them.

"Hmmmmm… nah. I'm sure it's nothing." She says and both she and Steven walk over to the struggling Greg. "Almost done Greg?"

"Just… about… done!" Greg struggles a little with the last rope needed to secure his cargo but he finally tightens it down. "There. That should keep them from flying off." He says as he wipes away some sweat forming on forehead."

"Great work dad."

"Thanks stu-ball." He accepts his sons compliment as he tussles his curly hair. However the good-heartedness of the situation turns to confusion as he remembers someone missing. "This is weird though. Marcus should have gotten here last night." Greg muses as he stares at the brushes that were meant for the back of truck. He turns to the others and continues, "What do you think happened to have delayed him so much?"

"I don't know dad. Garnet?" Steven asks the fusion.

"… Mm-mm." She shrugs unsure.

"Steven can you try calling him again?"

"Way ahead of you." Steven says as he pushes the speed dial number associated with his brother. The phone rings a couple times before a voice is heard.

" **The number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time. Please call again later."**

"It's the same as last night. He's still not picking up." Steven says in a worried tone. He looks up at the adults with worry clear across his face. "Wha-wha' do you think happened to him? He's not hurt is he?"

"Aw come on Steven." His dad crouches to his level and looks him in the eyes. "That guy's too good to get hurt so easily. Right Garnet?" He asks the fusion, who smiles and places a hand on his shoulder.

"Steven," He looks as her, "That boy… he has more firepower, more skills and more wits than any kind of monster he fights. Heck, he went toe-to-toe with me remember?" She reminds him with a smirk.

"Oh yeah." He remembers the fight he and Garnet got into in defense of Lapis. "I miss Lapis."

"And I'm sure he does too." She pats his shoulder. "Chances are he just got caught up in traffic or had some engine trouble."

"Yeah, his truck has taken a beating." Steven recalls the times his truck has been put through its paces. What with flying through the air and helping pop that puffer fish monster, getting buried in the sand, crashing into that giant rock to avoid hitting him, nearly getting crushed by 'another' rock from Jasper, as well as when Peridot's ship crashed into Beach City and some pieces nearly tore through the engine.

"Oh yeah, it has." Greg agrees with a crossed arm smile. He then chuckles. "Remember the time when that… Lapis chick took the ocean and threw me and his truck into the air?"

"Then the engine fell out." Garnet adds.

"And he kissed Pearl." Steven adds as well, making the others flinch at the memory.

"That was still weird."

"Ditto." Greg agrees with the fusion.

"Anyway, getting off track." She shakes her head and talks to the kid. "He knows how to take care of himself so chances are, it's probably engine trouble and he's in an area where he can't get any phone reception. We'll pick him up on the way back. Okay?" She reassures him.

"Hm!" he nods firmly with a smile and gets into the truck. "Let's go then! We can't leave him stranded out there for too long!" He encourages them to go now rather than later and he jumps into the passenger seat of the van.

"Hehe, alright son. We have the brushes anyway so there's nothing left to do than head home. C'mon Garnet." Greg goes ahead and gets in the driver seat.

"Right." She says and just before she gets into the back of the van, she looks down the roadway, and gets in.

* * *

"What was that?!" The leader asks on the phone with the driver. He heard the truck honk his horn for some reason and wants to know what warranted it.

"A kid wanted me to honk my horn. So I did." The driver responds simply.

The leader stares at the wall of the trailer for a few seconds, trying to process the excuse. "We have… a very dangerous, highly volatile person in the BACK with us! And you want honk your horn BECAUSE OF A KID!" He screams into the phone, making all his men look worried at his outburst.

The phone is silent for a bit before he answers, "Yes." The benefits when the person you're supposed to listen to is in the trailer of the giant 18-wheeler truck you're driving.

"Ehhhhhh," He lets out a breath of air and rubs his temple. "Just… just… don't do it again. We don't need any unwanted attention when we make the hand-off." He tells the driver tiredly.

"Roger." And with that the phone call ends.

"Everything good?" One of the others asks.

"Yeah, yeah." He waves off the question and focuses the attention back on their charge. "So, how's he doin'?"

"Well," The only one of them who was a former army field medic begins, "His vitals are stable, the medication isn't having any adverse effects on him and he's not reacting to any outside stimulus." He finishes his diagnosis before looking at his boss, "Besides the fact that for some reason he has god damn Jade crystal gems EMBEDDED in his flesh and looks like it's meant to be there instead of surgically implanted, I'd say he's fine."

"What's the deal with this kid anyway?" Another annoyed voice pipes up. "I didn't leave the marines to kidnap kids! And WHY did we have to get him in the first place?"

"Because it's our jobs alright." Another counters. "We knew the risks and responsibilities of joining this group and we can't pick and choose 'exactly' what we have to do."

"But what did he do to piss off the captain so much?"

"He didn't." All eyes look toward their lieutenant. "We're on loan to capture this guy for someone else since his men did a horrible job of it."

"Wait, you don't mean…?"

"Yep."

"Jeez." One of them groans as he remembers a specific group of their organization. "Them. God I don't know what the hell the commander was thinking when he let those kinds of people join the cause."

"They may not be trained like we are but we were low on bodies and they were willing."

"And look what they got us doing." The first guy spats as he waves his hand at their unconscious prisoner.

"Stow it." The leader lieutenant stops their complaining before looking at his watch. "We were given an order by 'our' captain and we're here to complete it. Besides we only have a dozen hours before we have to make the hand-off and wipe our hands of this. Just bear with it."

The rest of his men groan before they nod and give 'yes sir's to him. With a nod, some of them get ready to go to sleep as due with their shift change in keeping an eye on the prisoner but still rested enough should something happen. Once half his team turns in, the lieutenant stares down at the unconscious boy. He lifts his shirt and stares at the gem before letting it drop and sitting down. "Who are you?"

* * *

"Man where is he? We should have at least seen him by now." Greg says as they continue to drive down the road towards home.

"Yes, this starting to be odd." Garnet says from between the front seats. She then looks at Steve with his phone at his ear. "Anything?"

He pulls the phone from his ear and taps the screen. **"—you have dialed cannot be reached at this time. Please call again later."** He looks at her and weakly shakes his head no.

"Mmm." Garnet groans and presses her finger to her chin in thought.

"This is really weird." Steven moans as he puts his phone away and looks out the window. "He always has his phone with him and always answer it. I'm really starting to get worried here."

"Like we said Steven, these backwoods areas have terrible cell phone reception. If he's stranded then there's no way he could contact us if he's in a dead zone. We still have a ways to go before we get home so we just—"

"STOOOP!"

*TIRES SCREECHING!*

Greg slams on the brakes as hard as he can at the loud voice. The stop really tests the strength of their seatbelts as Greg and Steven are pushed forward roughly and harshly against the straps. Everything not battened down travels forward and collides with whatever's in front of it, even the brushes on top strain as well. Once the van jostles to a stop and the tires stop dragging on the pavement.

A low silence hangs over the occupants with Steven slightly out of breath from the seatbelt pushing against his chest, Greg has his teeth gritted and his hands deathly grip the steering wheel, and Garnet's hands clutch the side of the sides of the seats, leaving impressions in them.

"Garnet!" Steven looks at the fusion with surprise and confusions, "What's wrong?"

"Yeah! Why'd you have me stop?!" Greg asks in the same tone while looking at her.

Both of them don't get an immediate answer and for some reason she remains staring out the windshield. Very slowly, she brings her right hand up and points forward to the side. They look at her confused until they follow her pointing finger and a strange sight ahead of them.

Tire tracks across the road in front of them, broken glass… and a destroyed guard rail.

"That wasn't like that when we passed it." She tells them grimly.

"Yeah…" Greg agrees as well, remembering not seeing anything that significant on their way to Keystone. "What do you think Steven?"

"…"

"Steven?" Both Greg and Garnet look to the passenger seat to see that its empty. Rapid footsteps can be heard and looking forward again, Steven is seen running straight towards the broken guard rail. "Steven" Both adults yell and after Greg turns off the van, they both jump off and run after the kid but he already jumped down off the road and is heading deeper into the woods. "Steven, wait!" Garnet calls out to the kid as he jogs through the woods. She easily jumps past the broken barrier and doesn't stop as she hits the ground.

"Steven wait up— Oof!" Greg however isn't as dexterous and falls flat on his face on the forest floor, not noticing just how high up they were.

"He's here! I just know it!" Steven yells back as he crawls over a broken tree and continues on ahead.

"Steven!" Garnet calls out again as she deafly moves through the foliage behind him. "Please slow down! We don't know what happened! We don't know for sure it has anything to do… with… him." Her argument peters off as she comes upon the scene before her.

Steven is standing in front of the burned husk of a wrecked truck. The machine is severely charred, pieces of metal are melted onto the forest floor, cracked black glass litters around the upturned vehicle with the same coloring on the grass and floor around it as well. Garnet slowly walks over till she's standing next to the kid, both of their mouths agape at the destruction that is before them. What makes things look even grimmer and worrisome is the fact that the back half of the truck is almost completely blown and torn apart, barely leaving the seats section of the truck intact. Neither one of them says anything because of a horrible realization they notice about the burned up vehicle.

Despite it being nearly completely destroyed, they can still recognize the very same truck that belongs to the person that came into their lives so long ago.

"Stay here." Garnet taps his shoulder as she slowly walks forward. Steven remains rooted to the spot in fear of losing his brother. She slowly walks around the vehicle, carefully inspecting it from all angles for any sign of a… she gulps, body. So far there's nothing but there is only one clear and only spot he could be in that involves this wreckage. With hesitant steps around the front, she stops in front of the driver side door which hangs lazily in front of the seat. With a few shaky breaths, she closes her eyes and grips the edge of the door. Her fear of seeing him… like this grips her with shakable worry and her grip slightly bends the chapped metal. _'Three… two…!'_ "Ngh!" With a strangled cry, she pulls it open. Unfortunately, her feelings right now and her strength combined, she accidentally tears the door clean off its hinges and sends it soaring through the tree line behind her.

Steven flinches at her action and waits expectantly for her to answer. "Garnet… is… is he…?" He leaves the question in fear of the answer being yes. He stares at her face as she in turn stares at the driver seat. For a second, her face remains impassive and neutral as she stares at the driver seat, until very slowly the corner of her mouth curls upwards. It stays like that as she walks around the truck and away from the wreckage to Steven.

"He's not here." Steven lets out a breath of relief at knowing that he's not gone. "But this still looks weird." His expression turns to confusion. He should have been coming in the opposite direction of us right now. But the tire tracks on the road show he was coming straight the other direction, and was going very fast before trying to stop."

"So, it was an accident?" Steven offers but she shakes her head no.

"I'm not sure. How this looks, who he is and the state of his truck just don't add up." She states and places one of her hands under her chin in thought.

"Uhhh, guys?" They look away from each other to see Greg coming up behind them. He looks a little haggard from trying to catch up to them and falling repeatedly, but its what's in his hand that has them more than a little worried. "Is this… what I think it is?" He holds up a black rectangular object. "Whoa. What happened here?" He asks looking at the wreckage and he goes to hand it to Garnet but Steven swipes it from his hands before they can trade and stares at.

"This… this is… his phone." He breathes out in horror at the device. "This shouldn't be here! Not without him! He never leaves this anywhere! He always carries this everywhere!" Steven starts to get hysterical at seeing the phone he's seen dozens of times used by Marcus. The very same device he uses to get alerts, hack devices, and control just about any and everything he owns. Carefully, Garnet reaches down and picks the broken phone from his hands. He stares worried at her as she examines it from all angles. It's when she sees the screen does she stare hard at it. "What do you think Garnet?"

She doesn't reply as she stares the part that's interested her so much. The screen is broken completely with the internal components visible behind it. What has her worried however, is the boot imprint on the glass. "I think he's in trouble."

* * *

*Smack!*

"Wake up!"

Slowly, the gem/human hybrid named Marcus opens his eyes from the punch. After being knocked out for so long, his vision is severely blurry from not seeing anything for over a week. He blinks his eyes as he tries to make sense of the shape in front of him.

*Smack*

Unfortunately the shape is impatient and delivers another punch to him. After getting the sense knocked into him, so to say, his vision returns and he spits out a glob of blood and saliva as a trail of it goes down the corner of his mouth. He also notices that his hands are bound behind his back with some sort of steel and so are his legs to the steel chair under him.

"Good your awake." The man tells him angrily. "After all this time, I finally have you here and I can finally get some god damn answers." He sneers at Marcus and grips his face. A look of realization comes across Marcus's face. "Now… tell me where—"

*RingRing*RingRing*

"Garh!" He groans in anger and impatience at getting a call now of all times. He pushes the kids face roughly to the side and steps back before pulling out his phone and putting it to his ear. "What?!"

"Is that anyway to treat your friend who did you a favor?" A russian accented man on the other line replies in a smug tone.

"Ehhh," He groans as he pinches the bridge of his nose at hearing from this guy and sighs. "Yes, you did Yuri. Thank you and I appreciate you doing this but I need—"

"You don't get it do you Johnson?" Yuri tells him threateningly. Johnson stops talking from the interruption and listens to one of his fellow captains words. "You're on thin ice from the stuff you've done before and this shit you've done with this… kid? The amount of material, gear and people you lost?" He asks the last part in disbelief before continuing, "The commanders starting to doubt you and the fact you called ME to do your work… people are starting to talk."

"Yuri… you better choose your next wor—"

"Or you'll do what? Hurt me? Kill me?" He challenges his fellow captain with a smug grin on his side. "In case you haven't noticed, the commander didn't exactly sanction me helping you with this personal vendetta you have. You. Owe. Me… Understand?"

"Crystal." Johnson's phone strains as his knuckles turn white from the near crushing force he exhibits on the device as he sneers.

"Good. Now, since my men had already reported that they handed him off and are on their way back, and the fact that your really anxious to stop talking to me and get back to doing whatever it is your going to do to him. Have fun."

*Click*

Johnson stares at the wall in front of him as he slowly brings the phone away from his ear and slips it back into his pocket. There is an aura of slowly unabated rage welling up inside him at the incompetence of his men and how he had to rely on one of the others men in order to get this guy. He turns around and looks at the kid.

The smile he gives him sets off the powder keg of anger that plagues Johnson.

The next couple of minutes straight are filled with the repeated sounds and tell-tale noises of beatings and punches over and over again, making the men outside flinch at how brutal everything sound behind the door they are guarding.

"Aaahhh." Johnson hisses as his knuckles ache from the punches and the slight tiredness he feels. He flexes his fingers to stave off the pain before staring at the kid. Small parts of his face support bruises and slightly swell up from the beating, his chest and stomach, under his shirt, show a plethora bruises forming as well. He stares at the kid as he walks back up to him and stares at the head that's aimed towards the ground. "You know why I want you." He begins talking. The kid doesn't say anything at first, but a few seconds pass before with agonizing slowness, he starts bringing his head up. "You were the only person to have last seen him." His eyes are on level ahead but continue to pick up. "I have been waiting for years to find you and get some answers. Now, here's my chance." Marcus's face finally aims upwards and the two of them stare into each other's eyes. "I'm going to ask you once, and if you know what's good for you, you'll tell me what I want to know." He leans closer and with a firm grip in his voice, he asks, "WHERE. IS. MY. BROTHEEEEER!?"

"…"

"…"

"…" Marcus doesn't say anything. Even through the pain of sporting multiple cuts, even through the dizzy feeling of his mind and body being put into a shutdown state for over a week, even with the knowledge of knowing that he's finally been captured… "He he."

He laughs.

"Hehehe… ah hehehehe he haha haaaa." He weakly laughs. He drops his head and shakes it from side to side before he lets out a sigh. He takes a moment to fix his composure with closed eyes towards the floor. When he's ready, he stares up at the angry face of his captor with a tooth-filled smile.

"Hello… Uncle."

 **Things are starting to pick up people. A piece of his past has finally come back to haunt him and those puzzle pieces are starting to come together. In just three chapters people, will answers and revelations be brought out into the open for everyone to see.**

 **To be honest, not many of you made the connection back on Watermelon Steven and I was kind of surprised. Even so, things are gonna get crazy for everyone involved and I hope I make things exciting and mind-blowing for you all.**

 **Alright, with that bit of informational rant on Marcus given to you all, now it's time for me, the author, to rant.**

 **New content came out for For Honor and it… is… amazing. I have absolutely fallen in love with the Shinobi and I bought the season pass so I can play him early.**

 **Totally worth the $40 bucks. Some might consider that a little expensive just to play a character a week early. I call bull. In opinion it was worth it and I don't think I can go back to other classes on a regular basis. The way he moves, jumps, dodges, the mix-ups, his feats, and his Weapons!... Man this is awesome. I've also tried the Centurian a couple times too. Not the absolute best I like playing, but I'm getting there. With college classes over and nothing for the summer besides RTX, I have almost my complete entire free-time to both be a badass Shinobi ninja in For Honor, and work on my stories for everyone to read.**

 **Speaking of Steven Universe, because of the new Steven Bomb that happened, already I had to change up some future plans to work with what happened, and come up with new ideas as well. With the next episode coming real soon, this next set of episodes for Steven Universe are going to be off the chain and I am super excited for them.**

 **Is it also wrong that I reeeeeealllly want to smack some sense into Lars? Please?**

…

 **Anyway, thank you all for your continued support and I really hope I don't disappoint in the future.**

 **As always, have a great day everyone, and have fun reading.**


	49. 47 Interrogation

_Six days after the van returns home. Marcus is still in transport._

"Where could he be?!" Steven cries out in worry from the kitchen. After their return to Beach City, Pearl immediately was hoping that Marcus managed to convince Garnet to forgive them… but the new development quickly brought that thought completely careening elsewhere. After that, knowing just who it was that was after Marcus, everyone paled but had no idea what to do.

They waited patiently for almost a week in hopes that he will return to them. "I don't know Steven." Garnet grumbles from her place on the crouch. So far though, no luck has happened.

"We know who it is that took him. Why don't we go find them and mash them up already!" Amethyst says as she punches her fist to her palm. The other gems and Greg sigh.

"It's not that easy Amethyst." He tells her with a depressed sigh.

"Why not?!"

"Because Marcus was taken by one of the most infamous and secretive criminal group in the entire world!" Pearl angrily retorts. The purple gem goes from angry to surprise at the pale gems outburst. Pearl clenches her arms together in frustration at how useless she feels as she stares out the window. She pulls something out from under her arm, looks at the paper and sighs before turning around to the others. "After… meeting them back in the Kindergarten, I did some research on them to find out as much as I can and see how dangerous they are."

"What did you find?" Garnet asks, intrigued by the news. Things are still slightly rocky for them, but Garnet can learn to put her feelings aside to ensure their family member returns safely to them.

Pearl closes her eyes and takes a couple deep breaths before explaining. "They were originally a small time group of criminals that specializes in illegal heavy weapons and armaments distribution. After the first time he was taken, they've only increased in power and numbers and became an even more deadly power. From what he took from them, they are a lot bigger than what everyone really thinks." She tosses the papers in her hand onto the table, allowing the many pictures she found to scatter all along the table. Everyone scrambles and looks at the pictures more closely. "They do their own research too." She says grimly.

"Wait, this is me at the car wash?"

"Hey I remember this! I went to get some Fry bits that one time."

"This is us at the restaurant!"

"Pearl." The firm voice of Garnet causes everyone to stop picking at the pictures to look at the fusion. Her vision slowly moves over to the pale gem in question. "Why are these pictures from a distance?"

Pearl eyes clench at the question, and she remembers what Marcus told her back when they were finished at the Kindergarten. "We found… a board… filled with pictures of every human we've been in contact with. These," She waves her hand over the pictures, "Are the ones he removed before I could see."

Surprise and sacredness is apparent on everyone as they here this. "But… why would he…?" Steven questions in confusion.

"I found them in his jacket. He left it here before he went to follow you." She runs a hand on her head, "I was hoping I would find something that could help track him, and found out something much worse."

"Soooo, does this mean…?" Greg lets the question hang as he's scared to know what this means.

"He lied to me when I asked if the Iron Kings knew about us here at the temple." She crouches in front of the table and looks down sadly. "They know… about all of us."

* * *

"Ready to tell the truth?"

"…"

"... Fine."

*Smack*

It's been the same rinse repeat method for half a month now. One week it took Marcus to go from the Keystone state to another state entirely and a few days more to be transferred to some secret facility belonging to the Iron Kings. Now half a month has passed since his disappearance, and things aren't the best at all.

He is constantly being watched 24/7, and is chained up at every moment… except till now.

"You ready?" Johnson demands once he's finished his beating.

"I already told you. I don't know where he is."

"LIAR!"

*Smack*

It's the same every time he comes into the room and demands some answers. He asks one question: 'Where is my brother?' and Marcus replies the same: 'I don't know.' Naturally the leader of this cell of the Iron Kings won't have it and makes Marcus's life hell, both during, before and after the interrogations. Constant beatings every few days, only enough food to keep him alive, leaving him constantly starved, cuffed all the time and a constantly blinking and buzzing light bulb to both annoy and disturb his sleep patterns.

For Johnson, after his brother met that mysterious woman and ran off to be together he effectively lost all contact with him, his last and living relative basically. Fast forward many years later and when he tries to find his brother in hopes of joining him in the organization, maybe putting in a good word for him, he absolutely fails in locating the guy. Moving on from that he instead tries to look for his girlfriend but that was a bust too. Moving on from that, he grew increasingly angry over not knowing where his only brother is… then gets a message.

'You're an uncle.' And a picture of the kid. Those were the only means of communication he got from him and it drove him crazy, erratic. He tried tracing it and constantly calling back but nothing worked. So close yet so far for him he was going crazy figuring out why. After awhile, he heard mysterious reports and feeds of crazy things happening all over the country. Remembering how freaky the girlfriend was, and how odd she looked, that was his next clue: his nephew. He never cared for the kid since he never saw him with his own eyes in person. Seeing as how his brothers son is the last means of contact with his brother, it was just a matter of keeping an eye out for anyone with Jade gems on their arms. His constant moving hampered his ability to locate him… but he slipped up in Beach City.

Staying in one place for too long allowed Johnson to finally find him. From there it was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity. When it finally came and he got the call they got him. A massive burden was lifted off his shoulders at finally getting answers.

Or… so he thought.

Not even a week later he gets a call from one of us subordinates about how one of their facility's was destroyed, caught on fire, and was raided by the police as well. Seeing that the facility destroyed just so happen to be the one that was supposed to hand off the kid to him, there was no way it was a coincidence that he never showed up. Resumed surveillance showed he returned back to his home in Beach city with close to a million dollars worth of supplies, gear and equipment that belonged to the organization or was meant for someone else.

And the commander came down on him hard for that blunder… and again for the failed kidnapping. Surveillance showed that he had some people he cared about so he had tails put on the others as well for future leverage. When he followed a train out of his town for some reason, it was then that he organized as many people as he can to find and capture him, alive.

To not hear back from anyone at all, all communications cut off, was concerning to say the least.

Johnson thought up of everything he could do to try to get this kid but nothing came up that could work. Without any other choice, he turned to Yuri, another of the same rank as he but was well decorated and commanded a more… experienced group of people.

Now, he has him in his grip and all his nephew has been doing for over half the month is deny it. He has to admit, the kid knows how hold his ground because despite everything he's done, he still hasn't cracked at all. He shows some surprising and scary healing as the injuries that appear soon disappear when he goes to do anther interrogation. Everytime I open the door I have a bunch of guys with guns ready to fire in case he attacks and I have four people on the door at all times.

Johnson breathes heavily as flexes his fingers before sitting down in another chair and sighing. "Why?" Even through his injuries, Marcus looks up at the question. "Why won't you just tell me where he is? That's all I want to know. It's just that simple." He practically pleads to the kid to tell him. For years he's been in the dark and now while its literally in arms reach, he's still not getting it. He wants something at this point, anything.

"…" Marcus stares at his uncle before his head dips and he sighs. "I already told you, and have told you time and time again… I… don't… KNOOOWW!" He screams right in front of his uncles face with pure anger. Having treated like hell almost a month has started to take a toll, despite the healing, and Marcus is getting really sick and tired of it all.

"…"

"…"

"… Alright then." Johnson gets up and walks out the door, leaving Marcus to be bound in his chair for another six hours until his food arrives.

* * *

 _Three weeks later. Marcus is interrogated._

"Well, that was a close one." Steven says in relief. The Crystal Gems return to the temple via the warp pad after dealing with Peridot. While Marcus is still missing, efforts to try to locate the green gem were still ongoing since they had no idea what it is that she wanted to do.

In the weeks after his disappearance, some small things have happened around town, such as Steven getting a new outlook on the lives of Onion and Amethyst, and the play he got to help make.

A play was performed on the beach as a means to help invigorate the town on the history of Beach City. While Mayor Dewey almost wrecked the whole thing with his horrible means reenacting it, Pearl's historical accuracy and Steven and Jaime the mailman's actions kept things relatively under control.

Now though, they broke ground in locating Peridot and acted on it post haste. Unfortunately Pearl's eagerness to finally capture Peridot led her and Garnet to being trapped and very nearly getting crushed. Finally reconciling, the two of them managed to fuse into Sardonyx and escape before going after Peridot.

"Yeah it was." Garnet agrees as they go into the living area.

"Still, what do we do with this?" Amethyst asks holding up Peridot's leg. She may have escaped but she had to detach her leg, somehow, in order to do so.

"Hm, I'll hold onto it." Steven says as he grabs the leg from her and walks over to his bed. "I'll keep it as a souvenir."

"Weird souvenir." Amethyst grumbles before walking over to the fridge for a snack.

Steven happily hums as he walks up the stairs and sets it down on his bed. As he goes back down, he sees Pearl looking down. "Pearl, you alright?" He asks her. She looks up at him and sighs.

"He's still not back… is he?"

The mood in the room plummets as they realize what she means. Amethyst puts the sandwich she was going to eat back into the fridge, not feeling hungry anymore.

"No… he's not."

Pearl looks depressed at the news still being the same it has been for nearly a month now. "This is… different… isn't it?" She asks as she sits down.

The others nod and look at the jacket hanging on the rack. When they found out about the pictures, they were all angry at the idea that he kept this piece of information a secret from them all this time, however as days turned to weeks and now it's getting dangerously close to a month that their anger turned to worry. True they were angry but every single one of the crystal gems can tell you for a fact that they would not wish permanent harm on him at all.

"Garnet?" Steven gets the attention of the fusion, "Are you sure we can't go out and look for him?" He asks her, hope in his eyes that she'll lift the rule.

See, since a hostile criminal organization knows about the gems and what they do and who they are, the idea of going out to look for the hybrid was an option, at least until Garnet instigated the rule that they can't venture out of Beach City. They already took him and things will get even worse if for some reason and somehow they were able to get anyone else as well. While after work, Greg has taken to parking his van outside of the temple as a precaution. A precaution that no one is complaining about. "We can't Steven. They work best out of this town. We go looking for him, they'll know…" She states firmly, then looks down, "And… we can't take the risk of them getting anyone else too. I'm sorry." She calmly but sadly explains to him. By this point, Garnet is feeling down as well when she remembers how she treated him. Now things are looking like she may possibly never be able to forgive him.

Feeling even downer more than usual, he gets off the couch and goes over to the front door. He opens it and walks outside just as the sun starts to set. The gems look at each other before walking outside with him. He lays his head against the top of the railing, staring out the sea. "Steven?"

"I miss him. I hope he comes back." He replies, saddened. "I don't want to lose… my… brother." Steven and Marcus have been tip-toeing in a way about calling each other that. It was never officially established but after the fight with Jasper when she first arrived was when it started happening. Now though, after being gone for so long, Steven can't help but miss him so much and remember all the times he's helped them, helped him. All the times he's been there to support and help him with anything he needed help. The times he's felt down and depressed. Whenever he would have a problem and Marcus would move in to help when he could… exactly how a big brother would help. He did a great job of playing one with Connie's parents at the dinner date.

He feels arms wrap around him. Amethyst from his right, Pearl to his left, and Garnet encompasses all of them. "We miss him too Steven." Pearl tells him and the others agree.

"He did a good job in getting us to like him." Garnet says with a smile.

"Yeah, you'll see. I'm sure he'll come back." Amethyst tries to help as well with her words.

"You think so?" Steven asks hopeful but still staring at the sun.

"He's like you Steven." He looks up at Garnet's words. "He's always surprising us. He can do it again."

Realizing what she's said, it's true that Marcus has done a lot to surprise them at plenty of opportunities. Whether it's the first time he met them, his skills, his knowledge and just what he can come up with given enough time, he comes out on top.

For the first time in a long while, Steven smiles and hugs the arms that are wrapped around him. "Yeah, your right."

* * *

*Smack*

"Puh!" I grunt as the punch lands me on my right side, still bound to my chair. He's been at it slightly longer this time and I can tell he's really getting tired of this song and dance we have been doing for a month.

I think. The lack of windows and no knowledge of time indication has left me barely able to figure out exactly how long I've been down here. Even though I am bruised immensely, he still feels the need to roughly grab me by the hair and bring my face close to him. "I'm getting really tired of all of this. Why are you being so stubborn and just tell me what I want to know?" He growls in my face.

*Pff*

I spit in his face, along with blood, making him recoil and quickly wipe it away before glaring at me. "Because it would be a lie." I tiredly tell him. I'm in pain right now and at this point I'm used to it, but I'm also really tired of him. _'I can't believe I'm related to this ass.'_ I think and slightly crane my head up to look at him better. "If I tell you what you want to know, it would be a lie because I don't know. Why bother because you won't believe a thing you hear from me." I let my head lay on the ground.

He stares at me with a mix of fury and confusion, before realization dawns his face. His face adorns a neutral look as he shakes his head. "Fine. I guess I have no choice. I didn't want it to come to this." Very quickly, he kicks my chest and I feel something break. I cough out specks of blood as one of my ribs snaps, sending a veritable amount of pain through me and making it hard to breathe. My blurry vision and uneasy hearing manages to make out him walking out the door and close the door. "Get some guys to the town. We're grabbing the kid. That'll make him talk."

Apparently the son of a bitch left it slightly ajar because just before I lose consciousness, I hear the worst news in my life.

* * *

Black.

The entire world I black around me, save for the pale light behind me.

I sit on the ground cross-legged with my hands lying on my knees. My eyes may be closed, but I know the ground and everything else is all the same shade of absolute black except for the light my body is blocking. The news I heard, was not meant for me to hear… but I heard it.

Unbridled anger races through my mind and body but it's anger that I've never felt before. It's anger that I doesn't make me rage.

Its anger that doesn't make me scream bloody murder and curse them to hell.

It's anger… that makes me think. Plan… contemplate everything.

My choices are limited. They have been since I was brought to that room. I can't get out. Not when I am monitored how I am.

I can't get out… at least, not alone.

"Grrrrrrrr." A low growl pierces the silence around me. Slowly, my eyes open and I see it.

The monster I became when Homeworld arrived. The monster I became and almost killed… Lapis.

' _Lapis… ohhhh Lapis.'_ She's still out there. She's still trapped by Jasper whether she's holding her or the other way around, she's still trapped. _'I have to get out. I have to find her.'_

The monster crouches low to the ground and very menacingly crawls closer and closer to me. Out of the black void around us, the red eyes are a shining beacon of this place and its features become more and more defined until it's right up against my face. Now instead of seeing from its eyes, I can see why she was so scared of this monster.

It lets out a series of growls as it examines my face from all angles from the front, still baring its teeth. "Grrrrrr… Grrrrrrrrrr… GrrrrRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" It lets out a fierce roar right in front of me, opening its razor sharp teeth-filled maw, spittle flying around me as it roars. I don't flinch as my hair blows back from the force of it and just stare. Soon, its roar dissipates and turns back to a low growl, then silence. "…"

"…" We stare at each other.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… Do it."

A teeth-filled grin spreads across it's muzzle before it stands tall and side-steps me. Its stomps start to get quieter and quieter until it disappears into the light behind me.

"… Huuuuuuu." With a tired sigh, I close my eyes and dip my head. _'I have to get out… and save her.'_

Now all I have to do is wait.

Wait… for it to finish.

 **M. That's the rating I'm going to switch the story to just before I upload the next chapter. I've been dancing around that idea for awhile now and I think it's long overdue.**

 **I'm going to be honest with you all, I have no idea how exactly I'm going to go about the next chapter, but if you all remember how deadly the monster was when it fought Jasper, remember these aren't gems. They are human… and they angered the beast.**

 **I don't know if I'm going to go crazy or anything but I'll do what I can to keep it tame. Don't expect highly descriptive tears or anything like that on the people, but I feel it is about time I make it M.**

 **Still everyone, I don't want to leave this on a grim sad note so now let's talk about some serious issues that came up: Wanted.**

 **Seriously, holy crap was that 1-hour awesome. I have no idea if I've ever been so anxious to see what comes next because the implications of what might happen next are so unknown to me. I won't spoil anything but man that was amazing and while I am excited to see what comes next for Steven, the new set of episodes has forced me heavily revise future ideas. That being said, I also came up with a ton of other ideas as well and I have no idea what to chose to do at specific moments. There are so many theories I have read, seen, watched and come up with and it makes my really excited for the next set of episodes they'll show. It's also safe to say that I no longer hate Lars. He's really stepped up and he's gone from being a jerk, to being awesome. Definitely want to see how they get out of this.**

 **I went overtime hard in getting this chapter completed after the 1-hour premiere because I just had to tell you all that I did see it only fueled my want to continue writing this story. That being said, it's because of that that I decided to forgo my next RWBY chapter and get this done as well. For awhile, I'm going to be working on Marcus's adventures more prominently now because I am just hyped up for this series since watching the new episodes. For those of you who read my other stories, sorry for that but I hope working on A Tale of A Jade makes up for it.**

 **Thank you all for listening to my rant. Have a great day everyone, and as always, have fun reading.**


	50. 48 The Beast Unleashed

**Just a quick advice to you all, a small warning will be in the chapter before things get hectic for Marcus and Iron Kings. The next chapter will have a small description of the important events that took place in this chapter so you won't have to worry about missing anything really important because your squeamish, too young or what have you. Also, at the very end of this chapter there is a scene that should elaborate on a past event and it won't be as descriptive as the rest. If you don't want to read the horror that the monster brings, simply scroll all the way down and then go back up slowly until you see the beginning of the italicized set of paragraphs. Just trying to make sure your reading pleasure is that, pleasure. Not mind-scaring or anything. As I've said before in the past, I'm paranoid like that.**

 **Also I have a message at the end author note for those of you who have reviewed chapters of my story.**

 **In any case, thank you for your time and enjoy.**

 _Four weeks since his capture… Marcus has escaped._

"I'm back!" Steven shouts as he steps into the house.

"Steven! Do you know how late it is?" Pearl scolds the kid as he and Lion walk in. "We were just about to go look for you." She continues as Garnet and Amethyst stare from the breakfast island.

"Sorry Pearl." Steven apologizes and goes to the couch. "Connie's mom took my mom's sword, and we had to go to the hospital to get it back from her." He explains and looks to the side before looking back. "We were… delayed, a little." He adds nervously.

"Delayed how? Traffic?" Amethyst jokes and takes a swig of her soda.

"No, fusion monsters."

"What?!"

*PFFFFFFF*Coughing*

Garnet's eyebrows raise in surprise while Pearl shouts and Amethyst spit takes and coughs.

"You ran into some fusion monsters? In town?" Garnet questions.

"Mmmm, sort of. They were apparently brought to the hospital because they thought they were injured people." A look of realization dawns his face. "Oh yeah! Connie's mom knows about us now." He tells them with a smile. The gems however don't share his emotion.

"Connie's… mom knows about… oh boy." Pearl gets worried at the idea of anymore humans knowing about what they do.

"That's… interesting." Garnet hesitantly says.

"Man, sucks Marcus still ain't here." Amethyst says depressed and lays her head against the counter. Everyone looks at Amethyst now, making her perk her head up. "Let's be honest here. If he were here, he would probably do some special hacking thing to make sure she doesn't say or do anything." She explains as she wave her hand about.

"Hehe, that's true. Unlike most humans, Mrs. Maheswaran has a bigger head on her shoulders." Garnet comments with a chuckle. "From the dinner we had with her, it's obvious she cares very deeply for her daughter and our occupation isn't exactly the most… safe." Everyone nods at the statement. Steven also remembers how she acted during both families dinner date, and how Connie told him she needed to be careful with sword training since her mom definitely wouldn't have approved. Now that she saw firsthand what it is that he has to deal with, he is immensely relieved that Connie will still be able to hang out with him.

No one knows what else to say right now exactly so there is a slight air of awkwardness about them.

"Man where is he? Getting really annoyed waiting like this." Amethyst sulks. By this time in them waiting, it's gotten to the point that they weren't feeling depressed and sad all the time. Now they just all feel a little down whenever they remember him and have hope for his safe return.

"Best we can do now is wait. We would have no idea where to go looking." Garnet says and its true. Even if they didn't have the rule to go out, he was kidnapped hours before Garnet, Steven and Greg found his wrecked truck so the trail was cold as it was.

"I guess." Steven says sadly before getting up and going over to Lion. The beast looks at him curiously. "Do you know where Marcus is?"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Uhhh." He sighs frustrated, pets his mane and goes over to the window. "Hope you're doing alright Marcus." Steven hopes for his brother's safe return.

* * *

"Hey." The four guards guarding the cell room of the prisoner turn their heads down one hallway to see one of their technicians coming towards them. "Get ready. I'm gonna have to go in and fix his light."

They four of them look at each other before turning back to him flabbergasted. "Are you serious?" One of them asks.

"Yeah. The surveillance camera isn't showing anything because the light broke a little while ago. Here look." The tech explains and pulls out a tablet and shows the video recording. It shows the kid they've been guarding since he came to the facility unconscious on his side, still attached to the chair from the boss's interrogation a few hours ago. The light continues to flicker until it shuts off completely. "Boss wants eyes on him 24/7 and the light kind of prevents that. So shall we?" He gestures to the door with the key in hand.

The guards all look warily at the door before nodding and get their guns ready on the door. They were told at the very beginning how dangerous this kid was and how many of their own men died by his hands. Even how he took out one of their facilities. They had several inches of thick steel between them and him, plus automatic assault rifles in hand so they felt somewhat comfortable by being so close to him. Whenever the boss came to interrogate, they were always on edge and now feels even worse for some reason.

They quickly check their rifles one last time before giving the go ahead. The technician though is completely oblivious to the horror on the other side.

Their Pandora's box opens at the turn of the key.

 **Warning people: This is where the M rating should come into play.**

The door creaks open slowly and the room is covered in complete darkness. "Alright kid. Here's the deal: I'm going to fix the light and that's it. No doing anything stupid alright?" The tech calls into the darkened room. Silence is the only answer the guy gets in return. "Hey! Did you hear me?! I said I'm—"

*FWOOSH*

"GRHHH!" His face is encompassed by black as a claw thrusts out and grabs him by his face. The tools he was carrying, and the tablet clatter to the ground, the replacement bulb shattering as it impacts the ground and the guy grabs the arm out of reflex. In an instant he feels a crushing force on his skull. "Mm! Mm! Mmmmmmm!" His muffled efforts to dislodge the appendage from his face fail. He lets out loud muffled cries as he is pulled into the darkened room.

"Open fire!" One of the guards orders.

As one, all four assault rifles open fire straight through the door and into the room, hoping to tear apart anything that was inside it. The boss gave explicit orders that if he were to fight back, end him. Well he fought back and that's the order they are currently executing.

Ten seconds of continuous fire and all four of them run out of ammo in their weapons. Smoking gun barrels hiss at the sheer amount of firepower they exhibited before the men calm down. Slowly lowering their weapons, they see if they can see anything moving. To all of their surprise, a mass starts coming towards them. As it comes out the door, horror is clear across their faces as they see what it is they unloaded all their ammo into.

The body of the technician, completely riddled with bullet holes, is carried by his head out the door.

*Thud… Thud*

The body falls from the claw… then the head.

"Oohhhh Fuuuu—" One of them starts to cry out and tries to reload his rifle.

*Shick*

He is stopped as another clawed hand comes out and skewers his rifle, and his chest. The guards body instantly goes limp as he is embedded into the wall. The last three guards stare in horror at the nightmarish beast that just ended their partner as they unsteadily move away from it.

*Crunch*

One of them steps on the shattered light bulb. The clawed hand roughly pulls out of the body and it stands to its full height. The monster takes up nearly the entire hallway and stares down at them with blood red eyes. All three of their weapons shake in their hands, unable to reload their weapons due to the sheer fear that this thing exhibits onto them. They continue to back away from it but for every step they take back, the size of the creature dwarfs two. They finally get the sense to start reloading their weapons but its too late. The monster couches low to the ground, and pounces.

* * *

Johnson sighs as he continues to read through more reports. Being a high level captain in the Iron Kings doesn't have the flare and glory of doing field work since most of it is reading reports and managing his men to go where they are needed. He's already sent a group of men to go to Beach City and wait for the perfect opportunity to take the kid. His men have been stretched thin as it is with the recent losses but now that he's finally caught, he can get to work. _'Soon you bastard. Very soon you'll tell me what I want to know.'_ He thinks as he puts down another report and picks up another.

"...aaaahhhhhhhhh!..."

He looks up at the faint scream he heard. "The hell?" He questions and slowly rolls his chair to the opposite side of his desk. Quickly bringing up the video feed to the room, it's still dark, for a second. The light bulb flickers to life and his eyes widen. The room is empty, save for the severely mangled steel chair and splatter of blood on the ground in front of the door. Even the door is missing from its hinges. "What the fuck?!" He yells as he jumps to his feet. Quickly scrambling over to the phone, he hits the extension number to the mess hall. It rings a couple times before someone picks up. "Hey! Listen we have a breach! Get everyone armed and ready to…" His order trails off as he realizes he hears nothing. "Hello?"

"…"

"… Hello?! Someone answer! Answer goddamnit!"

* * *

"Hello?! Someone answer! Answer goddamnit!"

The speaker doesn't get an answer, nor will he be able to get one from the severed hand clutching the phone.

Blood drips to the floor as it swings to and fro, narrowly missing the body that's crushed behind the steel cafeteria table. The entire mess hall has become a complete blood bath in such a short time. Two people have their heads crushed, having been slammed against each other with such tremendous force, and left to face plant into their ruined food. Anothers spine is broken as he was force against his chair backwards, leaving him in an open mouthed state of horror at the last second a clawed hand pulled him back. Many more men lay in puddles of their own blood, having been killed with a variety of injuries ranging from torn off limbs and left to bleed out, cuts and slashes that nearly go through the entire people's bodies, crushed bodies and people slammed hard against the walls of the room, some of their necks twisted horrifically from broken necks.

The men that were casually eating were completely caught off guard from the massacre.

"Guh. Gah. Ack. Fu—"

*Crack*

The last survivor of the massacre has his life snuffed in one simple snap of his neck. The monster stares at the limp body now before letting go, allowing it to drop to the ground in a heap. Its black fur is now matted with specks and streaks of blood at various points of its body. It looks at the body at his feet before reaching to the side and grabbing the several inches of thick steel door that used to be Marcus's cell door with his left claw.

"Over here! Down this way! It came from the mess!" A man's voice can be heard plus rapid footsteps past the double doors in the hallway leading to the mess hall that the monster is standing in front of.

"Are you sure?!"

"Yes I'm sure! I heard the screams and I don't know what's going on but—"

As soon as the voice is right on the other side of the door, the monster brings its leg up and kicks the right most door. The metal door swings open ungodly fast, slamming into the wall, embedding both it and the man into the stone wall. The dozen or so other men that were following him stare in horror at the circular window now stained red before looking to see who kicked it open. The monster stares at them all with a look of amusement and takes a step forward.

"Wha-What the hell is that thing?!" One of them asks as they take a step back.

"I-I-I don't know!"

"Who cares?! Just fire!"

At the sound advice, everyone in the hallway brings their weapons up to bear and open fire. A staccato mix of assault rifles, shotguns, pistols and SMG's unleash lead down the hallway at the monster. Its massive size and the small hallway easily making it impossible to dodge the attacks.

Fortunately for it, it isn't going to dodge them. Before they fire, the monster brings up the steel door in front of it. The thick metal door covers the entirety of its body as every round meant for it stops dead because of the metal or deflects elsewhere.

The metal ricocheting of the bullets fills the hallway as loud as the guns firing to kill it. It only waits for a few seconds for the flurry of bullets to slightly dissipate before it starts to stalk forward, keeping its makeshift shield help up and not waning in the least bit. As only a couple guns are left firing, it quickly dashes forward and shield bashes the people in front of it.

Several of the men scream as they are with the force of car, some flying back and getting caught by the others, while a few fall to the ground or against the wall. The monster moves forward past the men on the ground and ends them. One thrown against the wall to the right has his throat cut from its right claw, the one of the left wall is crushed with a clawed foot slamming into his midsection, and the last man under the monster groans from the hit and before staring up with wide eyes as it brings the door up. "AAAAAHH—!"

*SLAM*

The door cuts off the man's last dying scream as it comes down and destroys the head beyond recognition. It picks the door back up and continues to move forward. The rest of them scramble to try to reload their weapons and pick up their injured comrades and but it's too late.

It hoists the door high up over its head and gives a demonic grin to the soon to be dead men. "Murder… and Mayhem… AWAIT YOU ALL!" With a deep demonic say and yell, it accentuates the last bit by throwing his shield at them, and running forward.

* * *

Johnson lets out a shaky breath as he stares at the camera feed from his computer. He watches as this… thing, tears apart his men like nothing through the hallway. The last part he sees is the last man try to fire but one swipe coats the camera in red.

"Sir!" A man busts through the door, sweaty and frantic. "We're getting reports that someone's—"

"I know." Johnsons simple two words are enough to stop his man from continuing.

He looks caught off guard by the statement but quickly reaffirms himself. "Well, what do we do?" He asks. Normally it's as simple matter of moving teams to the side of the compound that the intruders are at and retaliate, but the new reports state that the enemy is deep inside the compound.

Johnson stares at the screen for a few tense seconds before leaning back and sighing. _'I don't have choice. I'm sorry brother.'_ He thinks with closed eyes. "Order everyone on high alert. Everyone is to be equipped with the very best we have. No exceptions." He grimly tells the man.

His eyes widen at his bosses orders. "Re-really sir?"

"I am. Everything." He grimly tells his subordinate.

The man blinks a couple times and tries to say something but nods nonetheless. "You got it." He agrees and goes out into the hallway. He stares at the closed double doors where his men once stood. Slowly he stands up and walks over to the door. He simply locks the set of doors and sits back down in his seat. Elbows on the desk, fingers locked and crossed over each other, all he has left to do… is wait. "Come get me you son of a bitch."

* * *

"Come on! Last sighting was from down this way!"

"What the hell are we dealing with?! I didn't hear anything else besides this guy killing a lot of people!"

"I don't know! But whatever it is we gotta get moving now or else he gets away!" The group of six men sprint down a hallway at breakneck speed to get to where the intruders last sighting was. They continue to move as fast as they can until something flies out in front of them.

The body of someone crashes into the wall from the T-shaped hallway intersection, halting their progress. They slide a stop as they stare at the mangled body embedded into the plaster wall. Peaking out into the other hallway, the good news is, they found the intruder.

*Crack*

The bad news, the intruder found them. After letting the crushed skull body fall to the ground, it turns its head to them, making all of them feel a sense of dread as the blood red eyes stare at them. Tossing the body away, it starts running towards them.

"Shit! What is that thing?!"

"Fuck if I know! Just take it down!" All of them move out and immediately open fire on the thing. As soon as the first rounds leave the guns, it takes the initiative and busts open a door to its left, going into another room and out of the hail fire. The bullets fly past the door but their aim moves towards the door, keeping it pinned down inside. "That's a small room. No other way out. Let's kill it." One of them starts moving forward with another right behind.

"Whoa whoa whoa! You serious man?! You saw that thing right? That was… I know what the hell that was but it wasn't human!" One of them freaks out at the sight of the intruder. "And you wanna try and take it out on our own?! Your goddamn crazy!"

"Look," The lead man whirls around angrily. "That thing has probably killed a ton of us already. We can't wait or else it'll get wise and escape. Besides it's trapped in that room. Now c'mon!"

"Grrrr, fine!" The objector concedes and starts walking with the rest of them in a single file line. All their weapons continue to keep their sights trained on the door as they move to it. As they get closer, their movement speed slows down until they are shuffling as quietly as they can to the door. Once they get right up against the doorway, all six of them stack up, ready to breach the room and take this thing down.

"You guys ready?" The leader asks from the front as he pulls out a smoke grenade. The rest of them nod and cock their weapons. "Alright, on three." He says and grips the pin. "One…" He pulls the pin, "… Two…" He brings his arm back, "… Thr—"

*Crash*

"Aaahh!" A clawed arm crashes through the wall, easily tearing apart the plastered walls and sending white dust all over them. It grips the fourth guy in line and pulls the rest of it through the wall. The man tries to fire at it but his rifle sprays bullets all over.

"Argh!" Including one bullet shooting the hand the leader was holding the smoke grenade with. It clatters to the ground. Not wanting to be the center of the blast, the second guy kicks it away from them, making it bounce off the wall and into the room via the hole the monster made. Just before the grenade goes off and covers the room in thick gray smoke as well as just outside the hole, the monster brings both of its arms over its captive and crushes the guy in a bone breaking bear hug. "Damnit! Shoot!" The first guy yells and both he, second and third open fire into the smoke, although with his injured hand, he uses one hand to pull the trigger of his AK and his forearm on his injured hand placed under the front handle to hold his gun as straight as he can. All three of them open fire into the smoke as much as they can until they are sure it's dead. After a few seconds of shooting, they stop firing and wait for the smoke to clear. Once it does, they expect to find the body of the monster dead on the ground. They see bodies alright, three of them to be exact.

As it stands, shooting into a smoke screen blind is a sure fire way to cause friendly fire. All three bodies are of the last members of their line up on the door, and not one of them are the monster.

"Wha-! Where the hell did it go?!"

"I-I-I don't—" Before the first guy can finish talking, a heavy mass lands on him from above and promptly crushes him.

The last two guys whirl around to find out what the sound was but the second suddenly gets two claws straight to his stomach. He chokes out from the penetration of his gut as he is lifted up and tossed to the last guy. The now dead guys body goes through the air before it lands on the last guy. His gun goes flying out of his hand when he's crushed by his dead partner. Before he can have any chance of getting up, his eyes widen as the monster jumps all the way up to the ceiling right over him. The monster comes back down the ground like a comet, landing on both bodies, crushing them both to death. Blood spurts from the last ones mouth but he lies back dead on the ground.

The monster looks down at the body, waiting to see if it'll get back up and or show any signs of life. When it doesn't see any, it stomps off the bodies and goes off to find more prey.

* * *

And that's how things progress. The monster, the creature freed from inside the gems relishes the feel of the enemies it faces. It distinctly remembers the cheap battle it took part in when it first came out and makes sure to not be caught off guard so easily like last time.

More people try to mount against the intruder after the alarms are sounded throughout the entire compound but it isn't deterred in the least. Moving quick and fast through the winding tunnels and hallways of the complex set of buildings to keep the Iron Kings off it's trail. Because of that, they are forced to split up to find where it is and once they do, its too late for the ones that find it. It's already disappeared and disappeared to find more of it's prey where it can.

One in particular continues to elude it and after an hour of playing cat and mouse with the small fries, there is only one place left for him to be, along with the last of the men in this place.

The last remains of the grunts cower and run down the hallway leading to their bosses office, not because they think he can save but for the fact that his office is the last place that hasn't been bloodied. It's also a secure room with the only two entrances being the double doors main entrance and the window directly behind his desk. Covering those two should give them the ability to keep it out until they can call for reinforcements or make sure it doesn't tear them apart so easily.

If only they can get to it. As they all run full sprint to the room, the monster chases after them even faster. The unfortunate souls in the back get ripped apart, unintentionally giving the ones in the front the chance to get at least some distance away it. However it isn't much as its killing actions are simply slashes that cause severe bodily injury, broken spines on the back, leaving them to bleed as it passes and punches and backhands into the walls, leaving them unconscious crumpled messes. Not all of them can afford to turn around, or fire blindly back because of the risk to friendly fire. The ones all the way in the back however are killed too quickly to retaliate. The numbers dwindle quite rapidly until there's one left running. The last survivor continues sprinting, not even looking back to see his last comrades dying screams before they cut off. He turns a corner and spots the bosses double doors, a tiny bit of hope sparking in him as he books it a bit more. _'Almost there… almost there… almost there!'_ He frantically repeats in his head over and over again as salvation seems just within reach. He smiles as he gets within a few dozen feet.

*FWOOSH!*

A massive gust of air moves past him and his sprinting turns into slow steps. The smile stays on his face as he stares at the furred crystalline back of the monster. He comes to a stop as his breath stops altogether as well. He falls to his knees and his eyes roll back into his head, along with his head rolling back onto the floor and his body thuds forward.

"Pathetic." The deep demonic sounding voice spits out the words as it stares back at body and looks forward. With a sniff of the air, there is nothing left in the entire compound and only one person left. With a smile, it's clenched claws open and the razor sharp claws spray bits of blood onto the ground. Slowly it steps forward and start making its way towards the leader, raking its claws along the wall leaving deep gouges into the wood and plastered frames. It's slow walk gains more speed until it's sprinting down the hallway, the loud cracking and breaking of wood on the walls and under its feet following it in its wake, revealing its location to anyone in the building it's in, if there were any others left. "RaaaaAAAAAAHH!" It's low roar gains volume as it gets closer to the door. With one final cry, it crosses its arms in front of it, claws out to the front, and crashes through the door. "RAAAAWWW—!"

*BOOM!*

The shotgun blast from Johnsons SPAS-12 sends dozens of pellets flying at its stomach and legs, stopping it cold as it stumbles to the ground in a heap. With gritted teeth, the monster pushes itself up by its arms and glares at the man behind the desk.

*BOOM*BOOM*BOOM*

Another set of rounds are sent into its shoulder, forcing it to fall onto its back where more and more are shot into it's body at various parts. The monster screams out in pain at the dozens upon dozens of small shotgun pellets tearing through its body. Once the last shells is ejected from the shotgun, the man continues to glare at the monster that ruined his entire part of the operation, and his life, as it lets out ragged breaths. With the last rounds spent, Johnson tosses the shotgun to the side in frustration before walking over to wall on the right of his office. Reaching up, he grabs the decorative axe he keeps there for appearances sake. The weapon is as real as it comes, finely polished, wooden tan handle with black grip tape, and shining steel on the axe head that you can see your reflection in. Gripping it in his right hand, he turns around to see the monster glowing. He walks back to it and his eyes widen as he spots the shape forming back to resembling what a human is. Once the glowing stops, his eyes exhibit extreme anger as he spots his nephew, the cause of all of this and doesn't look injured at all.

"You just don't know when it stop fucking with me don't you?" He angrily says as Marcus writhes a little on the ground. "Not only did you destroy one of our compounds, but you also killed dozens of my men, forced me to ask for help, and now you destroyed EVERYONE UNDER MY COMMAND!" He screams and his hands grip the axe tightly. Marcus slowly rolls onto his left side, his left arm outstretched. "D you have any idea what you cost me?!" He asks loudly and brings the axe over his head before bringing it down.

* * *

*CHOP*

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" I scream at the top of my lungs as pain tears through my arm. My eyes fly open as I see an axe cut off the top half of my left forearm. I grunt as it's roughly pulled back.

"You just didn't cooperate now could you?!" I look up to see the axe coming down again.

"AAAARRRRGHHH!" I grind my teeth as he cuts off more of my arm.

"Why do you have to complicate things?!" He yells at me and pulls his axe back.

Unconsciously, my healing power activates and I watch the bone start to grow back.

"What… the hell… ARE YOU?!"

*CHOP*

"Aaaahh!" I cry out in more pain as he cuts off the healed bone. It doesn't stop the healing process though as more of it continues to grow.

"What kind of freak of a person are you?! What the hell did my brother see in that whore?!"

*CHOP*

I clench my eyes shut as more pain shoots through the injury. The healing becomes more erratic as it tries to heal my missing limb at a faster pace. I feel blinding rage course through me as he continues to hurt me again and again. My body starts to shut down from the healing but I force myself awake. _'I can't stop! I can't stop! I can't die here! I can't let him win! Not after everything he's done to me… What he plans to do to my family! NOT HIM! MY FAMILY!'_

"JUST DIE ALREADY! LIKE THE NOTHING YOU ARE! RAAAAAAH!"

"RAAAAAAAH!"

*SHICK*

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… Guh." He groans as we stare into each other's eyes. The axe he swung overhead remains in the air, and my broken wrist bone remains stabbed into his jugular vein and trachea. Blood pours from his mouth as his body starts to weaken. The axe clatters to the ground he weakly grabs my arm. He goes onto his knees but I remain standing, giving him one last death stare as I watch the life slowly drain from his eyes.

He struggles a little but I push more into him, making him go slightly limp. "Never… speak about my mother like that… You're not my family… and you'll never… hurt my brother…" I rip my arm out of his throat, making him instinctively grab it in an effort to quell the bleeding. Very tired now, very weak as my arm continues to heal, I reach down and grab the axe with my working right hand. He stares at me as I stare down at him.

"… Ever." Turning 360 to my right, the world slows down as turn all the way around, before in blur of speed, the axe cuts through his neck. My uncle goes limp completely as he falls forward… dead. I take a step back and take into account of what just happened… what I did.

Memories flood my mind in droves. Some I remember, some I don't…. some I was forced to forget.

I collapse onto my knees, the axe falling from my hands before I fall onto my back. The last thought that goes through my head before I fall unconscious is what 'really' happened to my father.

 _*Crash*_

" _Aaah!" I yell as the bottle impacts the side of my head, breaking on impact and showering me with its content and glass. I fall to the ground from the hit and feel the alcohol wash over me._

" _HOW DRE YOU TALK BACK TO ME?!" I hear my father's voice scream at me. "I AM YOUR FATHER AND YOU'LL SHOW ME SOME RESPECT!"_

" _Respect? RESPECT?!" I scream at him while holding the side of my head, stopping the cut from getting any worse. "How can I show you respect when you've never shown me anything?! Nothing! You've never helped me whatsoever! All you do is beat and hurt me! You haven't even told me about these!" I yell as I stand and point to the gems on my shoulders. He scowls as I point to them. "You've never even told me about mo-!"_

 _*SLAP*_

 _I fall as he back hands me. "You insolent runt! Don't you even talk about her! You don't deserve to even have her gems!" I hear him grip something but I'm too dazed to see. "You were a mistake… one that I mean to fix." I hear him lowly say._

" _Arrrrrghhh!" I yell in pain as he roughly turns me around and stabs me with the broken bottle in my shoulder. He twists it a little, digging more into me._

" _You. Are. Nothing." He hisses at me, the scent of alcohol on his breathe evident even through the haze of pain. "You aren't her and you'll never be her!" He yells in my face. He tears the bottle up and brings it over his head. "NOW DIE!"_

" _NOOOO!" I close my eyes and hold my hands up in defense._

 _*SHINK*_

" _ARGH!" My dad for some reason screams in pain. Slowly opening my eyes, they widen as somehow two green katana's appear in my hands… and go into him. We both stare wide-eyed at the sudden appearance of the blades before looking at each other. His anger turns from blind rage… to sadness. Tears begin falling from his eyes as he drops the bottle and falls to his knees. Still gripping the handles of the katana's, I get to my feet and stare in horror as he slowly falls back onto the ground, taking the blades out in the process. I look at them for a second before looking at my dying father. "You're not her… you'll never be her…" He cries out as the last of the life leaves him._

" _I'm sorry… Jade… Uhh." His head lulls to the side as he takes his last breath._

 _My dad is dead._

 _I killed my dad. He's dead because of me. I killed him._

 _Looking at the swords in hand, I quickly drop them. They clatter to the ground but once they go still, they disappear. I stare at where they were and look at my now passed away father._

 _I take a step back, then another and another until my back hits the wall. Quickly looking around, I spot the front door. Not wasting a moment, I move to the door and fling it open before running out into the woods. I run away from the isolated house my dad built._

 _I run… and I've never looked back._

 **And that's another chapter down everyone. Things got pretty crazy here for the Iron Kings. I almost feel sorry for them… almost. Secrets have been spilled and revelations realized for some. Tell me what you think about what happened and if it was a good idea to make it M. I'm still shocked everyday that more and more of you continue to favorite, follow and support this story. This is absolutely amazing to see and seriously everyone, thank you for the support.**

 **Thank you Patriota1993 for the Sith Inquisitor quote from SWTOR "Murder and Mayhem await." It was a last minute addition that I just decided to go ahead say 'Fuck it. Let's give the nightmare a voice.' I also haven't played the Sith Inquisitor yet in SWTOR, only the bounty hunter, Imperial Agent, Trooper and Jedi Guardian so I never heard that quote till them. I feel as though it fits the monster don't you think?**

 **That being said, holy crap coldblue it's been quite awhile since I saw one of you reviews. Hope things are going well for you as well as everyone else reading this. You know, for awhile I was scared to actually give anyone any due credit for reviewing an suggestions because I didn't want to make it look like I'm playing favorites.**

 **Now, I don't really care because god damnit you all are awesome for your reviews, favorites and follows. Thank you coldblue for the extensive reviews you've given me at the beginning that have your own thoughts, questions and suggestions on what the chapter has brought up. I would also like to thank Okeler, SAK-96, halitelp, M. 6, Miss Tri, Patriota1993, boret98, Cinnabon68, even you Cf96 for everyone. Your reviews Cf96 may be one or two words but they're still appreciated nonetheless. Keep in mind folks, these are just the people I've seen review across multiple chapters and vaguely remember off the top of my head. I'm sorry if it seems I played favorites like this but I just got back from mowing my backyard, well half of it because it's a freaking jungle behind my house and I have to do it over multiple days, and I really don't feel like going through 317 reviews across 21 pages to get every single person who's reviewed over the months. Please understand that I feel like crashing into bed.**

 **Not much has changed in my personal life, went to see Wonder Woman in 3D, it was good, and I am excited for E3 in a week and can't wait to see what they'll unveil. I've been hearing stuff about the Xbox Scorpio, no new Halo, a new Assassins Creed, Dragon age and who knows what else.**

 **Again, thank you all for your support, have a great day, and as always have fun reading.**


	51. 49 Marcus's Lament

Quiet.

The entire place is quiet.

Looking out the window, this place I am in is isolated. A massive set of buildings of various sizes connected or combined into one massive building. In the time I've been captured, I could still hear the buzzing of voices, the talking, conversations, the sound of engines running to and fro with heavy machinery to boot.

Now… everything has gone so quiet. And it's so dark now. Night has already descended on the place, casting an eerie set of ambiance on the whole place. The night sky has always been a sort of comfort to me whenever I look up to it. Now I really don't know how to feel. Sadness? Anger?... Relief?

This month has been complete hell for me and it would have been for my brother if I hadn't… if I hadn't…

"Eeeuuhhh." I sigh and turn back to the desk. Turning the swivel chair around, I sit down and stare out the destroyed door. My right index finger taps on the desk as I recall what happened.

My… uncle decided that my lack of information to him was getting tiresome. He proposed the idea to kidnap Steven Universe in an effort to get me to talk more truthfully in his eyes. I wouldn't… I couldn't stand for that to happen at all. Not in the least bit. I was forced to let the monster side that is a part of me loose in order to escape and make them pay.

After it massacred everyone in this entire facility, it set its sights on my uncle last. To its surprise, my uncle really didn't attain his high ranking position by chance over favors. He caught it off guard and promptly took it down, forcing it to retreat and allowing me freedom to come out. Unfortunately it left vulnerable enough that my uncle used an axe to chop off my hand in anger. Repeated chopping from my regenerated limb left me in so much pain, angry and desperate. He's dead now as he forced my hand and for some reason the concept of losing the last of my blood family isn't making me sad. The killings, the sheer height I was forced to push my regeneration ability to, and the transformation… has unlocked some unpleasant memories. Memories that I think were forced back. Forced for me to forget, for awhile at least.

 _The revelation, my family's history, the powers I could have… everything. Interesting enough though, some info feels… gone. Like I know it's there and it's something I went through but I just can't remember it. Maybe some of it got pushed to make room for the new info but it's hard to tell._

After I was released from my mom's temporary room in the temple, so much information was thrust into me. Some I'm at times trying to process but the thing was that other bits of info left me. The fate of my father was one of those bits of information. It didn't completely go away, only reshaped in a way.

But this… thing inside me unlocked the memory. And now I know that I didn't simply run away.

No. I killed my father because I was scared and afraid of dying. He forced my hand, but that doesn't mean I feel good about it. I do feel a little relief right now for the fact that I don't have anyone coming after me now. Was my uncle the head leader of the Iron Kings? Or someone else?

*RingRing*RingRing*

My finger freezes in midair as my eyes glance over to the phone as it rings. It continues to ring a couple times. _'Whelp, I got nothing else to lose.'_ Rolling over to the side in front of the phone, I grab the phone and slowly put it to my ear.

"Johnson. I've got some sketchy reports coming from your part of the operation and I'm want you to tell me what the hell this is." A deep somewhat wise-sounding voice speaks to me over the phone. I glance over to the computer on the desk and see it's still on with complete access. Slowly moving over to the keyboard, I find I have access to everything. "I've also got reports of the alarms in your compound going off at full blast. What do you have that's attacking you?"

"Nothing big." I comment. Obviously from the sound of my voice, he doesn't buy it at all that I could possibly be my uncle. He breathes on the other end while I adjust the phone on my ear and start cracking through whatever security defenses the Iron Kings have on the their information network. "He bit off a little bit more than he could chew and it costed him and his men."

"Who is this? Reveal yourself."

"Me? Oh I'm no one really. I apparently pissed Johnson off to the point he wanted me out of the way. From the body in front of me, and the corpses littering the entire set of facilities, it didn't go well or in… and considering the fact that I answered the phone from the head honcho's desk that you called."

"… Who are you?"

"Like I said, no one you should concern yourself with unless you make interested in you. What I want to know is who you are?"

"Who 'I' am?" He asks incredulously.

"Yeah. From what I've gathered, Johnson isn't the absolute boss of the Iron Kings. Someone else holds that rank and considering you were the one to call and 'demand' a report from him, safe to say that it's you." I nonchalantly tell him as I've already hacked my way in and a plethora of information is revealed to me.

He doesn't respond immediately but I can still hear his voice and it sounds like he might be mulling over what to say to me. "You will not get anything from me."

"That's fine. I'm sure there are other people I can talk to. Like a general in the US army, some interesting manufacturing companies on the east coast. I also got Vancouver here," I hear his voice hitch at the kinds of people I start to mention. "Although of course I'm sure the Vice President might have something to say about you as well don't you think?" I ask him sarcastically. Apparently, I was right on the Iron Kings being so much bigger than what is revealed to the public because they have their hands in a lot of interesting people's pockets. "Maybe Yuri, Jonathon, Jacob, or Takeshi could also tell me about their boss huh?" I call out some names on his captains. If know that they have connections to higher ups in various

There are a few seconds of silence before he answers, "How do you know all that?" I can almost hear the threat in his voice and tightening of his hand on the phone.

"Well as it stands, I'm a pretty good hacker. Johnsons computer wasn't locked and only gave me some bits of info. While we've been talking I went ahead and helped myself to everything else in your secret organizations log of information. Pretty great stuff if I do say so myself." I say and lean back in the recliner chair.

"… What do you want?" He asks depressed and defeated. Leaning forward onto the table, I stare straight ahead.

"Answer my question and meet my demands. Alright?"

"… Alright."

"Good. Now are you the leader of the Iron Kings criminal organization?" I ask firmly. I don't care for the man's name. With a little bit of digging I can find that myself but I just want to know how high up on the chain of command I am talking to.

"I am. I am their commander. You killed my captain, Johnson ." He firmly states.

"Good then that means you can meet my demands." I comment slightly relieved that I won't be dealing with anyone else. "Now here's what you're going to do, you're not going to come after me or anyone else I care about. Doing so will force me to break you and everyone single person under your command."

"Very well."

I pull up the manifest of the amount of money they make. "Next, soon I'm going to send you the information of a bank account. Every month on the first day of it you are to deposit $5,000 dollars into it. That shouldn't be enough to cripple your operation from the numbers I'm seeing here, correct?"

"…Correct."

"And finally, I tend work on some projects in my spare time so I'll occasionally give you a call for you to deliver some supplies and materials too okay?" I list off my last demand. The commander's breath is a little heavy so he must be getting a little agitated with my demands.

"You're really pushing things, you know that right?" He asks in a low but calm voice.

I purse my lips and lean back. "Maybe a little."

"Don't think I have better men than what Johnson had. In fact, he was the lowest captain I had and I'm actually somewhat relieved I don't have to deal with him anymore. Saves me the trouble of dealing with him and his ilk." He threatens me.

I don't respond instantly to him this time. I close my eyes and take in a few deep breaths before answering. "Of that I don't have much doubt. However I'm going to send you a picture to show you that I too am serious." With a few taps on the computer, I send him a freeze frame pic from one of the surveillance cameras.

The Mess halls camera to be exact. I hear a small beep from the other side, which leads me to believe he got the email. Some clicks later, a sharp inhale of breath later, and I can sense the small bits of surprise in his voice. "I got your picture."

"Perfect. That proves that no one is alive here and I didn't just sneak in." Leaning forward again, I run my free hand through my hair. "Look I don't care about you guys. Johnson was the one that I had a beef with so without him, I don't care about you guys." I straighten up and look to the ceiling. "As a show of good faith, I won't call the police here and expose this place. Once I help myself to whatever you have here, you can send whatever you guys you want to gather up whatever gear you can salvage. I'm sure the bodies and the surveillance footage I'm leaving will be proof to show you and the rest of your men not to mess with me. Come at me again, ever, and not only will I expose everything and everyone in your organization but I will also personally kill you and anyone in my way." I threaten him now. The whole time since I was captured by my uncle I was constantly paranoid of the fact that at any moment the Iron Kings could attack to kill or capture me, and possibly hurt those I care about. We have enough to worry about without having other humans that could come at us at anytime to deal with us. "Do we have a deal?" I ask him.

He waits for a few seconds. I imagine he's contemplating if whether or not he should agree to a deal that puts him at a disadvantage with someone he's never met or heard of before. Considering I have all the cards, I have so much info to do irreparable damage to the Iron Kings, he doesn't have a choice in the matter.

"…Johnson messed up… so much… didn't he?" He asks me tiredly.

Glancing at the body of the man in question, I nod sadly, "He did. Very much."

"…Ha ha ha ha haaaaa." He lets out small deep chuckles that evolve into small laughs before he sighs tiredly. "… We have a deal." He finally agrees.

For the first time since I was captured, I smile. "Wise move."

"I didn't get to where I am by making stupid decisions."

I raise an eyebrow in question. "And hiring Johnson…?" I let the question linger in the air.

"…"

"…"

" … There are exceptions."

"Hehehe. True." I let out a short chuckle at him and stand up. "Well, I gotta go now. Go ahead and send your people over. I'll be long gone by the time anyone gets here. Tell your men 'good luck with the mess.'"

"From the person who caused the massacre in the first place?" He questions. I shrug my shoulders.

"Your choice." I reply and lean on the table. "I hope we never meet face to face."

"And to you, as well." He agrees on that point and we both hang up.

"Hmmmm, well, time to find their armories and motor pools." Moving back in front of the computer, I bring up the map of the entire place and start searching for where they keep their vehicles. Once I find where their garage is that holds all of their standard and heavy machinery, it's to my elation that the largest armory they have in this place is also placed right next to it as well. _'Good that means I don't have to move very far to grab anything I need.'_ With my destination in mind, I start heading out the room to where hopefully my new ride will be. However as soon as I make it to the doorway, I can't help but turn back to the body in the room. I let out a depressed breath of air before dipping my head and closing my eyes. "I'm sorry uncle." A moment of peace later, I pick up the axe in my left hand and am now walking through the war-torn facility to where I need to go. Each body I pass just makes me feel even more depressed about what had it come to. To keep my mind off it, I focus on the new information I gathered while I walk.

' _The Iron Kings are international, not just in the US. They have contacts high up in not just the US government but also in other countries as well. They also have their hands in some manufacturing companies all over as well; that's how their able to find and gather so many pieces of equipment. From the map it seems they also have their own means of making stuff as well. Not as wide-scaled but it's something. Their primary distribution and source of income comes from weapons and vehicle distribution to all corners of the planet. Secondary is sort of anonymous Private Military Contracts they take up as well in some war- ravaged places on the planet. A tiny bit of income however also comes from drug and narcotics distribution but that seems to mostly revolve around my uncle's point of operation, as well some other captains as well.'_ I make it outside and after a quick look around I find where I need to go. It's dark right now and it's already starting to rain. I ignore the drenching however and just continue to walk and keep to my thoughts. _'Weird thing is, now that I see how much money they seem to make, and the cost of their operation, distributing, and expenses, they seem to deliver a ton of heavy arms and equipment for no cost to different places they don't seem to control or own. I'll have to dig deeper but it looks like they don't have any bases at those places so their transferring between their men but something else.'_ I cut my inner thoughts off as I see that I'm standing in front of where I'm heading to. The rain continues to come down around me and I would go inside the two massive doors if it wasn't for the fact that a giant chain and lock is keeping the thing locked and closed. Looking around, I don't see anything I can use to break or cut through the metal heavy chains. "How am I supposed to…?"

A thunder strike lights up the area around me.

Staring straight at the door, my eyes slowly lean down to the gem on my left shoulder. I stare at the gem for what seems like eternity until I look forward and sigh. Slowly I bring my right arm up to my left gem. Concentrating, the gem glows and I feel the familiar presence of the Katana's handle in my grip. Slowly I pull the blade out, the sound of metal scraping accompanying it until it reverberates once it is pulled free. I stare at the shining blade as it quickly starts to get soaked in water. A thousand thoughts go through my head but one sticks to the front. I close my eyes and clench the handle firmly with it close to my chest.

"I'm sorry mom." I mutter under my breath, and raise the sword to my left.

*CHING!*

Louder than the thunder striking above, my sword cuts through metal chain with a loud clang of metal. The separate pieces of the chain swings downwards before they start to come lose without being held up by anything anymore. Once the chain fully falls away, I bring my leg up and kick both doors open. With a loud creak of strained metal, they swing wide open, revealing everything and absolutely everything I could possibly want and need.

For the first time since I was captured, I grin and get to work.

* * *

Steven stares at the rain falling down outside. The rain clouds have a slight orange tint to them as the sun starts coming over the horizon, signaling the new day. Unlike like last night, the rain has started to gradually lessen with it being a drizzle now. He can't help but stare out and wondering where he is.

"Doing alright Steven?" He looks up to see Garnet staring down at him. She sits next to him on the couch and looks outside too.

"He'd be able to help, you know." He mutters depressed. Garnet nods, knowing full well who he is talking about.

"I know Steven. I know."

"And there's nothing in your future vision for when he's coming back?" He asks looking at her, hoping she proves him wrong.

With a depressed head shake she shakes her head no. "Since he disappeared, I've been trying to concentrate to hopefully find something worthwhile… but nothings worked."

"Mmm." Steven moans depressed and lays his head on the window sill. A hand pats his head, making him look back up to see Garnet giving him a comforting smile.

"However, I do know he will return to us. Just have a bit more patience." She tries to console.

"It's been a month now Garnet." He frustratingly says. "How much more patient can I be?" He asks.

"I know Steven. I wish I could do or say anything else, but I can't." She tells him with her head down.

"Huuuuu… alright." He concedes and sits up. "Why don't you go get the others? I'll join you in a bit."

"Okay then." She nods back to him and gives him a hug before getting up an leaving.

Steven smiles at the gesture and looks back outside to see the rain has stopped now and the clouds are starting to part away from each other. "Where are you, bro?" He questions under his breath. He's about to turn around and join everyone else but a curious sound gets his attention. "Huh?" He questions as the sounds starts to get louder and it almost sounds like some weird sputtering noises. Walking outside onto the balcony, he looks up and down the sides of the beaches for the noise but their clear of anything. Soon it sounds like its right on top of him. "What is that?"

*FWOOOOSH*

"Whoa!" Steven cries out in surprise as a gust of wind almost knocks him to the ground. Grunting a little to get up, he pulls himself via the wooden railing and looks up. His eyes widen at what it is that knocked him down.

A helicopter just flew overhead carrying a massive transport shipping container with it. The helicopter in question is a dangerous and versatile piece of heavy machinery straight from the Russian military. The modernized Russian Hind, the Mi-35M Hind E Russian helicopter has just flown overhead complete with a full payload of heavy armaments both under its wings, under the cockpit, and in the cargo container it is carrying. Normally most helicopters can't carry one, plus the contents of said container, but the pilot of the helicopter made a few… upgrades before departing from the facility with his new gear.

Steven stares in amazement at the war machine as it glide down from above the cliff and smoothly banks itself back to the beach in front of him. As it slowly comes to a hover on the beach, his mouth keeps it's open mouthed state of awe as he watches it.

With the flick of a switch, the wires holding the container under the helicopter comes free and it thuds on the sandy beach. Next the copter moves over to the side and begins its descent next to the container. _'Who… who is? Why are they—'_ Stevens thoughts are cut off as he realizes out of all the people who could possibly make such an entrance, his open mouth of awe turns into a starry-eyed grin of happiness.

"What is that noise?" Pearl questions as she and the other Crystal Gems star coming out of the temple.

"I don't know. It sounds like it's coming from—"

"GUYS!" Steven immediately cuts off Amethyst with a yell as he bursts through the front door.

"Steven! What's wro—"

"HE'S BACK!" He happily shouts. The gems look at each confused before looking back to the kid. "HE'S BACK! HE'S BACK! HE'S BACK!" He continues to happily chant over and over again.

"Who's back, Steven?" Garnet asks.

"MARCUS! HE's BACK!" He shouts as the helicopters blades gradually begin to slow down. All the gems look surprised at the sudden declaration as Steven turns around outside. "HE'S BAAAAAAAACK!"

"Steven wait up!" Pearl shouts as Steven runs outside, arms in the air as he jogs down the stairs. The gems all run outside but seeing the helicopter and the cargo container gives them pause.

Steven meanwhile makes it to the sandy ground and jogs closer to the helicopter, ignoring the slowly spinning blades above. He stops a few feet from the machine with a teeth filled grin as he watches the person inside the top cockpit flip a few switches. _'Please be him. Please be him. Please be him.'_ He repeats in his head, hoping it'll be true.

"Steven becareful!" Pearl comes up behind him with her spear out. "We don't know who that is exactly." She warily says as she and the others get ready.

"But—"

"Hold on. Get ready." Garnet warns as the window door to the cockpit flips open. The gems get ready to fight in case the person turns out to hostile towards them.

Once feet touch the ground, the Crystal Gems stare in amazement at the pilot.

"Hm, is that anyway to treat a friend?" Marcus asks with a smile.

* * *

' _Holy crap… I have been gone for far far too long.'_ I think as I stare at the statue for a second before staring at my reception party. Tears start to well-up inside me as the month long hell I've been in finally comes to a close. I've missed my family.

"MARCUS!" Steven immediately jumps forward and grips my chest in a hug. I take a step back from the force but I immediately wrap my arms around him as well in my own hug. He starts laughing as we bury each other in each others shoulders. "Your…" He pulls back and my heart breaks seeing tears roll down his face. "Your back. *Sniff* Your really back." He states, his voice slightly cracking. Tears start to flow from my eyes too as I nod. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you too Steven. I'm back." I say firmly. With a smile, we hug again tightly. My eyes clench shut but the smile still stays on my face. "I am back… and I swear, I'm never going to leave you again." My voice threatens to break as well. Unlike last time when I was taken, it was only a week I was taken and I barely remembered most of the trip. This month, being away from my family for so long, was the most grueling experience of my life. And it wasn't because of the pain I felt, but in fact that I didn't know what was going on with my family and that I couldn't see them. Now that I'm back… I have never been happier. I don't even care anymore about what happened. These are the family I need.

"Ma-M-Marcus?" I open my eyes to see the others staring. Tears start flowing from Pearl's eyes too as we look at each other. Steven and I pull away from each other and gently set him back on the ground carefully.

I take a step forward and smile at them. "It's me. I am back… finally."

Pearl moves forward but despite the tears, I feel like there's something else with—

*SLAP*

The sting of an open palm slap by a very powerful very strong alien gem gives it away. Everyone gasps as my head is suddenly thrown to the right. To say I'm surprised is an understatement.

I look back at her in surprise to see she has a slight scowl on her face. "That… was for keeping the Iron Kings knowing about us a secret!"

"Wha-!" I say confused as I grab my stinging cheek. "You- You found the- I'm sorry but I didn't want you to—!" I try to explain I only did it so they wouldn't worry but Pearl's hug stops me from speaking.

"But I am so happy your back regardless." We hug each other as we cry in each other's shoulders. "You've been gone for so long we were getting so worried! We couldn't go look for you because we had no idea where you were and—"

"Pearl." I pull back and grip her face with both hands. She stops her ranting and looks at me. I give her a comforting smile and gently wipe away her tears from her left eye with my right thumb. "It's okay. I'm back now… and I'm sorry."

Her lips quiver and we embrace in a hug again. "I'm so glad your okay."

"Me too." I reply. A presence on my leg tells me that Steven has joined in the hug.

"Welcome back man." Amethyst says as she too hugs me.

"Good to be back."

"Good to see you again." Garnet joins in the hug pile as well, encompassing all of us in her hug.

"Thanks guys." We stay like that for a while before we eventually break off from each other. I wipe my eyes and smile in relief. "I needed that. Really."

"You're welcome." Garnet says as everyone takes a step back.

"So what happened to you?" Steven loudly asks. "Why were you gone for so long? Where did you go?! AND where did you get THIS?!" He especially loudly asks the last part as he gestures to my new helicopter.

The memories flash of what happened and I'm slightly depressed again, but only slightly. "Listen Steven, I'd be glad to recount to you all of what happened while I was gone, but right now I am very tired and I just want to sleep." I tell them and start trudging my way to the temple. Being gone for so long and sleeping in the worst conditions, even the couch sounds like heaven right now.

"That's probably a good idea." Garnet agrees with me as she and the others start trailing behind.

"Yes. I'll go ahead and fix you something to eat right now too. I imagine your captors weren't all that… hospitable?" Pearl asks and I can't help but nod slowly as I step of the stairs.

"Nope." I say while popping the 'p'.

"Well, at least your back man." Amethyst says as she pats my lower back.

"Really good to be back." I say again how good it is to be back. We soon make our way to the front door and I step.

"OhwaitMarcusweforgottomenti—"

"Alright you Crystal Gems! Go ahead and gather round while Steven and I—"

"…"

"…"

For some reason, I am now staring at Peridot who is in the middle of the living room holding a fly swatter. Now normally I would try to attack, capture and interrogate her for what she knows… but I've had enough interrogations now. And for the fact that is a lot shorter than what I remember. Parts of her legs are missing, and those gauntlets with the floating fingers are missing too.

I feel the others eyes on me as the two of us stare at each other for I don't know how long.

*Crink*

The sound of popping metal makes us all look outside to see the metal chain I had on the container snap off. The doors are pushed out as my new Ford F150 Dually lifted four door black colored truck rolls onto the sand with its back filled with tons of crates filled with materials, ammo, and weapons.

We stare at the truck for a bit before Peridot and I look at each other again.

I let out a very deep sigh as I rub my eyes with my right hand. "We all have… soooo… much… explaining to do." I move into the house and Peridot gives me a wide-berth but I ignore and collapse onto the couch face down. "I did not come back to deal with this crap!" I loudly say muffled through the cushions in the couch.

 **And I think that gives you all an idea where we are in the storyline now. Seriously after the 'Wanted' special, I've just been on a constant grind of chapters for Steven Universe and it's great.**

 **I'm probably gonna write a few more chapters here before I get back to my other stories just to get me back into the grove of working with the actual episodes of the show.**

 **Nothing new has happened to me thus far, same old same old.**

 **In any case, thank you all for reading, your reviews, much appreciated, have a great day and as always, have fun reading.**


	52. 50 Back to the Barn

"Ahem. Ahem." Peridot clears her throat. "As it seems I have no other options, I have conceded to reveal some important information to you Crystal Gems." She snaps her fingers, giving Steven his cue. He shuffles into our view wearing a cardboard box, leaving only his legs sticking out from the bottom. On the front towards us is a crudely drawn picture of the Earth. Peridot brings up her flyswatter. "This-!"

*Pat*

"Woah!" Steven yelps as she slaps the picture of the Earth with the flyswatter.

"… Is the Earth." She continues speaking and explaining the situation. "At the very center of the planet's core lies... the Cluster! Rotate." She instructs and Steven turns to the side, revealing now the center of the Earth's core with the apparent Cluster inside it, which is represented by a bunch of colorful scratches with colored pencils. "This is the Cluster." She says pointing at the scribble. "A massive, artificial fusion composed of millions of gem shards."

' _Millions? Oh my god. The few I fought were bad but millions into one? Damn.'_ I think before shaking my head and leaning back against the counter while the others are around the counter as well, looking surprised at the monster.

"It has laid dormant for thousands of years within this planet's crust. When this Gem activates and takes its form, the result will be catastrophic." Peridot continues her explanation before hitting the box. "Now!"

This now being Steven's cue as he starts letting out some warbling sounds and bobs the box up and down. The gems lean forward in preparation for what might happen from the noises Steven is making. I just stare however and mostly want to know what to do about this monster that's literally under our feet. His noise making gets more frantic until, "BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" A green, snake-like puppet bursts through the cardboard wall of the earth with Steven making it roar. The gems all gasp at the implication. I smirk at his antics. _'I miss this.'_

"What is that!?" Peridot angrily says to the kid in the box at the version of the Cluster he chose. Apparently she doesn't get the reference it represents.

"… It's the Cluster." Amazingly, Steven speaks and opens the puppets mouth as if it was the one speaking.

*Smack*

Peridot simply slaps the puppet with her swatter. "It does not look like that." She grumbles before turning back to the rest of us. "But it is real, and it can activate at any moment." She grimly tells us.

"Bwaaaah." Meanwhile Steven does the roar again but in a much quieter tone so as not to receive the green gems wrath.

"What a cluster." Amethyst says.

"That abomination must be stopped." Garnet states.

"You mean to tell me," I finally talk, getting everyones attention at the slightly annoyed face I adorn. "I have been kidnapped for over a month, dealt with the leaders crap every single day, fought my way through over a hundred men to escape… and now I have to deal with a planet-wide destroying fusion monster that could erupt at any moment and tear everything apart?!" My question and explanation gradually picks up volume as I get more angry at the fact that I am not able to rest after not being able to for a month. Everyone stares at me before as one they all nod, even Steven's little puppet nods too. My face falls to the grounds direction and I let out a sigh as I face palm. "Sure, why not? Let's go take out the Cluster." I sarcastically say.

"But how? We'll need to build some sort of machine to take us to the center of the Earth, it'll have to—"

"Hey!" Peridot suddenly almost swats at Pearl, interrupting her. "I wasn't finished speaking! What we need is to build some sort of machine to take us to the center of the Earth." She basically repeats what it is that Pearl was saying. "It'll need to withstand up to 360 gigapascals of pressure and temperatures of 9800 degrees." While she explains, Amethyst meanwhile is smiling at Pearl getting cut off, but she glares back at the purple gem, making her look back at Peridot.

"Well, we mustn't waste time. We need to start finding parts for this machine immediately." Pearl says.

"Agreed." I agree with her and get off my stool.

"Yes. Obviously. We'll start by dismantling all devices inside this dwelling."

"Wha?"

"Excuse me?" Steven and I question at Peridot's plan.

Before we can ask her to elaborate, she jumps into the kitchen and grabs the microwave. "This primitive radiation concentrator should come in handy!" She over describes the microwave and promptly tears it off and throws it onto the counter, breaking it. "This primitive vibration transmitter could possibly serve a function!" Next she moves onto the corded phone Steven owns, then smashes it. Finally she moves into Steven's room and grabs his TV.

"Oh no!" I yelp and move forward.

"There's a remote chance something useful could be inside this primitive image cube!"

"Whoa whoa whoa now!" I run up and grab the TV before she can smash it on the ground. The sudden weight of it as she nearly throws it at me makes me stumble backwards a few steps until I right myself and gently set it down. "You don't need to destroy everything Peridot! We can find stuff NOT in use."

"He's right!" Steven runs up the stairs to his bed, himself now sticking out of the hole he made in the box. "I have a better idea that doesn't involve destroying the house!"

"Good." I sigh in relief. _'I was not looking forward to keeping an eye on Peridot to make sure she doesn't destroy everything we own._ '

"Classic Steven." I hear Amethyst comment amused at him.

* * *

While it does feel good to be back, I am still slightly ticked off on the fact that I don't have a moment to rest and now have to help make a drill capable of drilling to the center of the earth and take on a planet-wide killing fusion monster that could destroy everything I know and love.

Yeah, no pressure.

Inner hate aside, while we were all preparing to head off to where we needed to go for the parts, Steven and the gems gave me a quick rundown of what I had missed while gone.

Garnet was able to come to terms with what happened with Pearl from the Keystone trip, as well after Pearl nearly botched a mission to find Peridot in an old gem ship. Steven got a better understanding of that freaky kid Onion, which he didn't elaborate exactly but I didn't really want to know. Then there was a play that Jamie the mailman was a part of and Pearl was able to help since when it comes to the history of the town, she was literally there. Next Steven and Connie apparently dealt with some fusion monsters at the hospital after some paramedics had mistaken them for victim and now her mother knows about us, the gems and her training. It's safe to say that I'm a little worried about her knowing but Steven promises that she won't tell anyone. I'd like to make sure his promise is kept but we have more important matters to attend to.

Steven also tried to help Sadie sing for a thing called Beach-a-Palooza but things didn't go as planned. And finally they told about how they captured Peridot and how things led up to her eventually helping us. After poofing her and sending her to the lava room, Steven was curious about what Peridot said and released her. Interesting enough is that the small form she has now is her true form and the arms and legs she had before were actually her limb enhancers as she calls them. After some confusion about her not knowing how the earth works, Steven showed her how everything went and that earned her trust enough for her to show him what the Cluster was. Some more convincing was needed, in the form of the gems saving Steven and Peridot from fusion monsters in the Kindergarten, for her to trust them too or at least tolerate them. Interesting turn of events but not as interesting as what Amethyst showed me.

* * *

" _Hang on Marcus." Amethyst grabs my hand and prevents us from getting onto the warp pad with the others. I and everyone else look at her weird before she nods to the others. "You guys go on. I have to talk to him about something."_

" _What?! Now?! We don't have time for –!"_

" _See ya." Garnet simply says and teleports her, Pearl, Steven and interrupting Peridot to the destination._

 _Now that we aren't going with the others, I turn to her. "Alright, what'd you need Amethyst?" I ask._

 _She looks at the warp pad for a second to make sure the others don't come right back before moving to the temple door. "Hold on a sec!" She calls back to me and rushes into her room._

 _Now I'm standing here awkwardly not doing anything and unsure what it is that Amethyst wanted me to see. Thankfully I don't have to wait long as her door opens right back up and she comes out holding something by the arms full. My eyes widen as I recognize what it is that she wanted me to see and I'm glad. "What the…? Amethyst, these are…?" I let the question hang as she transfers them into my arms._

" _Yep! Peridot's limb enhancers." She states proudly and I can't help but stare at them in awe. "Well, almost all of them. Steven gave her her leg so you'll have to make do with only one." True to her word, I only count one leg in the batch I have in my arms but I do have the arms and fingers as well._

" _Amethyst… this is perfect!" I happily state, excited at the idea of what I can do and make with these things. "Thank you but, why do you have these? I'd figure you guys would have trashed them so she wouldn't get the chance to use them." I question. Usually it's me that prevents them from destroying anything that I could use to either help me or all of us in general. My droids being a perfect example of that._

" _Well, I figured if you were here, you would have stopped us from throwing away or breaking them. So until you came back I decided to hold onto them and give them to you so you can do something with them." She explains. She looks at the pile in my arms before looking back up at my face. "Can you do something with them?" She asks._

 _I stare at her for a bit before staring down at the parts. As I look at them, I recall all the memories of when Peridot used these enhancers to fight us or escape. The transparent terminal or console she can make, the blasters, stun arcs, helicopter transformation, the ability to scale walls._

 _I smile. "Yes, I believe I can."_

* * *

Unfortunately we have more pressing matters to attend to so after a quick stop at my house to drop them off in my base, we head off to where we need to go.

It doesn't take long for us to be lead to the place that Steven proposes we use to make the drill. _'Man, it seems like so long ago since we've been back to the barn.'_ I mentally say as I stare at the barn in front of us.

"All right." I look back as Pearl begins her explanation to Peridot. "What we have here in the barn should be adequate enough for us to get started. First, I recommend we organize the component types and assemble a rough blueprint based off what we have available." She concocts a plan as we walk over to the chalkboard that Steven I sitting next to and swiveling in his chair with a smile on his face. "Ugh... sorry, Steven, it's a lovely drawing but it won't look like this." Pearl evidently crushes the kids spirit of his drill drawing as his spinning now gravitates to a stop and he frowns. Peridot meanwhile picks up a piece of chalk and examines it. "And if there is something that we do need but don't have, Marcus should be able to procure any necessity's we would need. Right?" I nod at Pearl's question. Peridot then gives the chalk to Pearl.

"Hmm. Good, yes, this is adequate. Thank you. You can go now." Peridot thanks her and she shoos off Pearl.

Confused, she exchanges glances with Steven and I, and we do the same to her. "Uh, what?" She asks confused.

"Hm? Um, that will be all?" Peridot tries to shoo off Pearl again. She even goes as far as clapping her hands as a way to magically make her leave. Pearl looks at Peridot incredulously. "How do you get her to leave?" Peridot whispers to Steven and I. The two of us look at each other confused by what she means while Pearl looks angry.

"Excuse me, I am not leaving." She states firmly and irked at being commanded to leave.

"Yeah! She's gotta stay here to help us build the drill thing, right?" Steven says and I agree with him.

"I don't know anyone better to help." I say in agreement.

Peridot meanwhile laughs at the idea of Pearl apparently helping us. "No, no. You're confused. A pearl can't build a thing like this." She says in slight amusement.

"Why not?" Steven asks.

"Yeah, why not?" I ask a bit more forcefully as to what makes it so amusing to her.

"Because pearls aren't for this! They're for standing around, and looking nice, and holding your stuff for you... right?" Peridot apparently explains while Pearl pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration.

"That's enough! If we're going to work together, you're going to have to listen to me." Pearl puts her foot down on her position on the matter.

"Listen to you?" Peridot mocks then laughs before looking to Steven and I. "Did you teach her to talk like this?" Pearl looks at Peridot angrily. I stare confused at her and exactly what she's getting at.

"What are you talking about?"

"Care to clarify?" Steven and I ask her about what she means.

"She's a pearl." She says like it's the most obvious truth in the world to us. "She's a made-to-order servant just like the hundreds of other pearls being flaunted around back on Homeworld."

"Servant? Flaunt?" I question her choice of words to describe pearls in general. _'Almost sounds like she's describing the Pearls as some sort of sl—'_ My eyes widen as I remember what Pearl told me after we had found Rose's scabbard. "Oh no."

"Wait… there's hundreds of pearls!?" Steven questions.

"Well, yes, bu—" Pearl begins to say as she blushes but Peridot grabbing her sash interrupts her.

"And she looks like a fancy one, too." Peridot comments, making Pearl gasp. I just stare in surprise and slight annoyance at how handsy and nosy Peridot is being right now at dealing with Pearl, our Pearl.

"Hundreds of pearls…" Steven whispers the words, obviously a little surprised at the fact that Pearl isn't the only Pearl out there but in fact can range to hundreds of them. I'm a little surprised too since I know there are multiple gems of the same kind but I didn't really think there are literally hundreds of pearls so easily.

"So, who do you belong to anyway?" Peridot questions Pearl. I slap the green hands, making her let go of her sash.

"Hands off!" I yell at her.

"NOBODY!" Pearl grabs her sash to avoid the green gem from picking it back up.

Peridot meanwhile stares at me crossly for slapping her hands. She rubs them a little before looking confused at Pearl this time. "Then… what are you for?" She asks. Pearl recoils at the question asked. "Well, you can belong to me for now. Ha! A peridot with a pearl, what would they say back home?" She boasts to herself. I just look surprised and horrified at her. _'What the hell?!'_ I scream in my head at how blatant she's being.

"Now listen here, you tiny twerp!" Pearl starts to get angry at the disrespect that Peridot is showing her. "In case you've forgotten, you're on our turf now! And I didn't fight a thousand-year war for this planet's independence to take orders from the likes of you!" She yells at the green gems face.

"Excuse me? I am a natural technician and a certified Kindergartener. I was made for this! You were made to take orders, not to give them!" Peridot says as the two of them glare at each other.

"Hey now careful." I warn them as I come a little closer and edge them away from each other. "We still need to build the drill so please don't kill each other."

"Yeah, hang on guys!" Steven jumps in as well, adding in my effort to calm them. "Now, we can all agree that you are both good at building things, so can't you just try listening to each other?"

"Yeah. I'm sure if the both of you work together—"

"NO!" The both of them yell at the same time.

"Gah!" I yelp at the loudness of their voices and the momentary look of pissed off anger on her face, making me take a wide step back and drag Steven with me.

"I'm as good at building things as you. Better, even!"

"Hah! Name one thing you can engineer better! Go on!" Pearl and Peridot go back to arguing with each other. _'Geez you two. I know some harsh and insulting statements were exchanged but we really have bigger things to worry about. How are we—'_

"Robots."

"Hmm?"

"Huh?" Pearl, Peridot, who heard Steven whisper, and I look at the kid curiously.

"You should build robots." He still whispers but his next words gain more volume. "Giant robots! I see a race. A giant robo-race! With prizes! Giant robo-prizes!" He boisterously says as he stares off into space, fantasizing about this robo-fight he's thinking about.

"You mean like a competition?" Pearl asks, to which he responds happily.

"Yeah! To see who's better at building stuff!"

"What are these robots you speak of?" Peridot asks a question that makes me all kinds of confused. "What?" She asks me after looking at my confused expression.

"Really? You don't know about robots?" I ask her. "What about your robonoids? Those are robots." I state.

"Except giant robots are bigger, and you can ride them!" Steven adds then stiffens his body up and proceeds to do some robot movements, plus makes the sounds to go along with it.

"Hah, building one of these robots will be easy!" Peridot boasts.

"Well, I can build one faster!"

"Hey!" Pearl in her haste barrels past me into the barn and almost knocks me down.

"That's what you think!"

"Arh!" Peridot however does knock me down as she too goes into the barn after Pearl. "Ow."

"You okay?"

"Peachy." I grumble as Steven helps me stand. Taking his hand, he hoists me up to my feet. "Thanks." I thank him. He smiles at the compliment and we both turn to the barn entrance and watch the duo work on their respective robots. "Wow, they're really going at it." I comment as they make incredible progress right off the bat.

Steven nods in awe as they work. Not even a minute passes before I hear some footsteps behind us. Turning back I see Garnet and Amethyst walking towards us. "Yo Steven Marcus, how are the wonder nerds doing?" She asks us but as soon as she opens her eyes she notices just what's going on. "Woah! Wh-what's going on? Are they building the drill?"

"No. We're building robots now." Steven answers, not looking away from the building.

Amethyst looks confused while Garnet looks at me. "Explain."

"They're challenging each other's building intelligence so their building robots to SEE WHO'S IS BETTER!" My explanation increases in volume as the construction sounds get louder, forcing us to cover our ears.

"What'd you say!?" Amethyst tries to shout over the construction sounds but only barely.

"I said- Look out!" I begin to say but a large mass moving out from inside the barn makes me warn everyone as I grab Steven and roll out of the way. Something big and massive zooms past us really fast. Looking back to where it sped off to, Steven and I look to see a giant tall robot with a big body with a cone on the front but the legs and arms are pretty skinny and lanky. The feet also are instead tires, making the machine move seamlessly with speed and ease. The robot spins around in a very graceful set of moves before coming to a stop and it's pilot stands up. As obvious as it was, Pearl is the one that stands tall in her robot mech, donning her space suit from when Steven, her and I tried to go to space. "Whoa." I mutter in awe at the machine.

"GIANT ROBOT!" Steven's awe of the machine is a lot bigger than mine as he happily states what's in front of us.

"Hah! Pathetic." I hear the familiar annoying voice of Peridot followed by thudding sounds. Turning back to the barn, Peridot now shows us her robotic mech. The giant machine is definitely different and the opposite of what Pearls is. The tiny green gems robot is green like her, but slightly shorter and beefier looking. "Now, behold, my vision of ultimate power!" She loudly declares and starts thrusting her large menacing clawed appendages into the air. She laughs as she continues to pump her arms up and down in a show boasting about her great her machine is. As she looks over at Pearl, she stops with a gasp. "Hey!" She complains at seeing the size difference between the two.

"Mine's taller. I win." Pearl happily states. I however gape at the two robots in complete and utter befuddlement. I look back at the barn, then at them, then back, and forth, and this goes on until my head hurts. "Wha… but… they… robots… quick… can't…" I mumble incoherently.

"I got you." Garnet drags me away as I can't move because I'm trying to process how quick they were able to make them.

' _Wow… I really need to do better myself.'_ I can't help but think how fast I build, and how FAST they build. _'Maybe it's the competition?... I don't know.'_

* * *

"Ladies, gentleman,"

"Thank you!"

"And gentle-Gems, welcome to the first annual Robolympics!"

"Woo!"

"Popcorn!"

I duck a little as Amethyst in her excitement tosses a few pieces of popcorn all over the place. After I stopped questioning exactly how they were able to build their giant robots so quick, things felt a bit better as Garnet, Amethyst and I sit on some benches to watch the competition. Steven is going to be the referee for this competition and determine who is the best at building. "This competition will test our robo-engineers' skills of robo-construction and robo-piloting. Whoever wins will get to be in charge of building the Cluster-drill-machine-thing. Let the games begin!" He announces the commencement of the competition.

' _Personally I have to root for Pearl but while she's good, Peridot is literally made to be a tech engineer and she has the advantage of modern day gem tech. However, Peridot's boastful and bigheadedness might just make her slip up enough and render all that advanced tech useless in a fight against someone who's had thousands of years of combat experience.'_ I analyze both opponents and how they might fare. Until I see them perform exactly will we see just how good they can be.

As the day progresses, Pearl and Peridot begin competing on the various aspects of their machines, including balance, which Pearl won, crushing, Peridot got that one and for some reason a cuckoo bird comes out Pearls bot as she almost crushes herself with a rock, grace, obviously Pearl, jumping, I thought Pearl would get that one but Peridot did due to some springs that send her practically to space, speed, although the tree won that one as they both crashed into it, and some other categories that Steven feels were necessary but I don't, such as ballet, art, and rock-paper-scissors. Other competitions include jumping jacks, tug-of-war, and projectile strength. Although with the art one, Steven chooses to declare it inconclusive as it is subjective. Ultimately at the final test, the two tie in terms of points, leading to a final round at early evening, involving them tossing of trucks.

"Alright guys, this is the final event!" Steven announces.

"You got this, P!" Amethyst cheers her on.

"Get it, girl!" Garnet too.

"Show her who's the boss!" I cheer her on as well.

"Hm!" Pearl looks back at us and smirks at us and our cheering for her. I can't help but glance over to the side and notice that Peridot is frowning at Pearl, no doubt because she's getting more love on winning than her.

"Ready, set, CHUCK!" Steven gives them the signal and they take it. Both of them dash forward, grab their trucks and toss them far off into the mountainous areas. After waiting for a few seconds, we expect to hear the sounds of the vehicles crashing into the ground, but there's nothing.

"Woah." Steven, Garnet, Amethyst and I can't help but say in awe at how far they threw those vehicles. The three of them look at each other before turning to me. "Marcus?" He says my name in a questioning manner. Knowing what he means, I let out a frustrated sigh and start walking back to the barn. Grabbing my Barrett as I pass by the bench, you know in case Peridot tried anything funny, and I proceed to climb up the side of the barn.

"What is he doing?" Peridot asks.

"Checking to see who won." Pearl answers.

Once I make it to the top, stand at the edge and look down my scope to try to find the tossed trucks. It takes a bit of roaming along the mountain to try to find something but eventually I find out that they didn't throw the trucks at the mountain but over it instead. "Oh boy." I moan as I let the rifle hang low.

"Well?!" Both Pearl and Peridot impatiently yell up at me.

"Oh yeah." I say sarcastically. For a moment they both look happy, "Those things are gone." And then I crush their spirits. "You threw them PAST the mountain! Unless you want to go searching, then we got a tie!" I announce to everyone on the ground. With a simple step off, I fall and slam into the ground with ease. Slinging my rifle onto my back, I walkover as Steven declares the winner, or winners in this case.

"You both get a point on that one." He states and we congregate closer to the barn to look at the score board. "Hmm, hmm." My brother hums as he counts up the points of both players. "Looks like our final score is... a tie!" He officially declares. "Welp, that settles it. You both get to lead the project together!" He happily tells them but they don't look as enthusiastically as Steven does.

"No! This isn't over! I demand we have a tiebreaker!" Peridot complains and demands.

"Ugh, let's just give it a rest! That's it, we tied, we're the same, let's move on." Pearl says and tries to concede to the green gem about their skills but Peridot will have none of it. As Pearl begins driving away, Peridot reaches out and grabs her arm with her robot claws and stops her from going any further.

"No! You're a pearl! You are beneath me! I'll always be better than you and nothing I've seen today will ever change that!" Peridot yells.

Pearl looks angrily at the green gem and I can't really blame her from the outright disregard she has for the pale gem. "Well, have you ever seen a pearl do this!?" For her retort, Pearl brings her leg and kick Peridot's robot, sending her flying back and landing on it's back. _'Holy crap.'_ I gape at the action while Steven, Garnet, and Amethyst audibly gasp, with Amethyst dropping her popcorn.

"So, you want to fight!?" Peridot challengers Pearl and snaps her robot's claws. "Good. We should've done this from the beginning!" With a laugh, she dashes forward and smacks Pearl's robot away, sending her flying towards us. Garnet grabs Steven and both her and Amethyst jump away while I tumble roll out of the way of the flying mech. The chalkboard also took a hit and is sent rolling towards me.

"Pearl!" Steven cries out.

"You alright?!" I call out to the gem to see if she's alright.

"It's alright, guys! I've got this." She reassures us.

"Be careful!"

"Good luck!" I wish her luck.

"Kick her in the butt!"

"Kick her butt Amethyst!" I correct the purple gem, although I hope I'm correcting her and she literally doesn't mean for Pearl to kick her in the butt.

Before we can say anymore, Peridot rushes Pearl and attempts to attack her while she's down but she manages to turn her bot around, blocking Peridot's attack and forces the two of them both to lock hands.

"This is pointless! There's no way you're gonna beat me! You're an accessory! Somebody's shiny toy! Where do you get off acting like your own gem?!" In Peridot's anger fueled rant, she rips off one of the arms off of Pearl's robot. "You're just a PEARL!" She sneers at her.

For a moment I'm tempted to jump in an stop this but the grimace on Pearl's face turns to one of determination. "That's right! I am A PEARL!"

*Smack*

To everyone's surprise, including my own on so many levels, Pearl punches Peridot. Literally she punches her and my mind takes a second to process that as the others gasp while I gape.

"WOOO-HOOOO!"

"YEEEEAAAAH! HAHAHAAAA! TAKE HER DOWN PEARL!" Amethyst and I loudly cheer her on.

Pearl moves back away from the green gem and gets up. "What you're saying may be true, but it doesn't matter!" Pearl's robot jumps up high into the air. "I'm still gonna kick your butt!" She states as she comes back down to earth with her legs poised to strike. We stare in anticipation as Pearl comes down to hit Peridot's machine with a devastating blow.

Unfortunately, Peridot was just a little faster as the second Pearl's leg gets close enough, Peridot's clawed arm grabs the leg just before she strikes. The green gem chuckles evilly and happily at the vulnerable position that she has Pearl in.

"Uh-oh." Pearl and I say at almost the exact same time just before the onslaught begins. Peridot swings Pearls robot down and makes it slam into the ground repeatedly over and over again, making the rest of us flinch at each impact. Once it stops, my rifle is already out and ready to fire but Peridot stands back from her defeated opponent.

"PEARL!" All of us call out her name in worry. Thankfully though she doesn't look badly injured, only dazed.

"HAHAHaaaa! Victory is mine! Now I'm the one in charge! Praise me, praise—"

"Pearl, are you okay?"

"Move it pint-size!"

"Arh!" Peridot lets out a strangled yell as I push past her towards Pearl. Quickly moving towards the downed robot, I grab an edge of the machine and lift it up a bit, allowing an easier time for the others to pull the pilot out. After she's clear, I drop the machine and we all crowd around Pearl.

"Ah, I'm alright."

"Ohh, that's good." I breathe a sigh of relief at her wellness. That whole thing was crazy and didn't look pleasant at all.

Amethyst quickly rushes forward and gives Pearl a hug. "Yeah, P! Aww, that was awesome! You were hardcore!" In her excited state, Amethyst punches Pearl in arm playfully.

"Oh… really?" Pearl asks as she rubs the spot where she was punched. We all nod.

"Oh yeah." Garnet says while also placing her hand on top of Pearl's head.

"Definitely. Straight out anime right there." I compliment her with a giddy smile now that I know she's fine. True she lost but the fight was also pretty cool nonetheless.

"Hey!" A loud yell gets our attention. Turning to the voice shows Peridot looking angry while also sporting a bruise on her cheek when Pearl punched her. _'That was still awesome.'_ "Why aren't you listening to me!? I won! I'm the natural leader here! She's just a common pearl!" She rants, making me increasingly angry with every word.

"Oh hohoho listen hear you little—!"

"You're wrong!" Steven's voice stops me from letting loose my own retort that might not be suitable for Steven. "If pearls are really like you say they are, then Pearl isn't common at all!" Garnet, Amethyst and myself look on smiling at the kids statement, even Pearl blushes and smiles at the complement. "She trained herself to fight! She learned how to build things! And she works hard every day to be greater than she already is! That's not common; that's amazing!" He finishes his speech with a smile.

There is a moment of silence throughout everyone here. I cross my arms as Steven looks at all of us and when his eyes lands on me, I give him a thumbs up. _'Never change Steven. Never change.'_

"Come on, let's clean up this mess." Garnet tells us. With a nod we all start congregating towards to where all the robot parts were strung about.

"Pearl, hah, you should come wrestling with me." Amethyst proposes.

"Uh… I dunno…" She's hesitant however of the idea to wrestle.

"Well, can you at least give me the specs to your robot? This whole robots fighting has got me very interested in making my own." I ask her. Ever since more of my memories have been unlocked, plus Peridot's limb enhancers, new ideas have spilled forth for me to make who knows what.

"I didn't write any plans down. I suppose if you give me some time I can draw up the proper blueprints for my robot."

"Thank you. That'd be awesome."

"B-b-but I won! What about the rules!?" Peridot demands. Garnet and I stop and look at the green gem. After we look at each other, we give her our answer.

"Welcome to Earth." We both tell her simultaneously and go to help the others.

A couple hours pass and the sun is already starting to set on the horizon and we've got a good chunk of the materials cleared out around us. As Garnet and Amethyst start piling Pearl's broken robot in the barn, I stand next to Steven and we watch as Perdot walks over to Pearl carrying a drill.

She clears her throat before speaking. "I have to admit, it's... remarkable that a Pearl such as yourself could become such a... knowledgeable technician. Mmm... Why don't we get started?" Peridot says and holds up the drill, upside down mind you.

"You're holding it upside down." Pearl tells her as she takes the drill and hands it back, right side up this time.

The green gem blushes at having gotten something simple wrong. "Y-yes. Of course. Y'know, those round appendages on your machine could be useful for something."

"They're called wheels."

"Oh boy." I groan at the slight lack of info that Peridot apparently might not possess.

"Ahhh, looks like we're well on our way to stopping the Cluster." Steven says with a smile, a little happy at the turnaround that the two gems have done.

"You think you can stop me?" A slightly gravely voice of Steven makes me look at him to see him holding up the cluster puppet he used as a demonstration.

"Aaaaaaah!"

"Raaaarrrhh!"

Steven yells in playful terror as he makes the puppet pretend to devour him. "Ah, we're doomed!" He cries out as he falls to the ground.

I can't help but smile at his antics and how much I really have missed him. _'Good to be back. Really good to be back.'_ I think with a smile. As I look around, I notice a particularly large rock in the ground that may get in our way. _'Eh, may as well.'_ With a shrug, I leave Steven to be devoured by the cloth terror and walk over to move the thing. As I go to it, I catch Pearl's eye and for some reason she smiles like she has an idea.

"You know, since I know we still have our differences, I propose the two of us work together while having someone else oversee our work and make sure we are on the right track." Pearl pitches the idea to Peridot.

She looks skeptic at the tall gem. "Really? And who pray tell is skilled enough, smart enough and leader capable enough to be the leader of the both of us?" Peridot asks, skepticism oozing in waves at which one of us could oversee their work. I mentally contemplate as I pick up a giant piece of rock that could get in our way. _'Probably Steven or Garnet. Thought neither one of them has as much experience in working with machines than Peridot and Pearl. So that would only lead—'_

"Marcus."

*Thud*

"OW!"

"What?" I question at my name being called, making me drop the rock on Amethysts foot, who is now bouncing around on one foot while gripping the crushed one in her hands.

"Who?" Peridot asks confused, like she doesn't remember my face with the name.

"Him." Pearl points at me. Seeing me standing here awkwardly, Peridot's eyes widen in surprise.

"HIM?!" She cries out in surprise and confusion while also pointing a finger at me.

"Geez don't act so surprised." I mutter with crossed arms, slightly miffed at her surprise of me.

"Yes him. There is without a doubt that he is as much, possibly even more, technologically adept at building stuff as the both us. Since the both of us will no doubt come to disagreements on some issues, under his guise will he make sure that everything goes smoothly because he sees the bigger picture." She explains. I can't help but smile at Pearls spot on description for me. True to her words, I'm not really that privy to Peridot but the cluster will destroy everyone on this planet, me and Peridot included so I'm willing to put my differences aside to make sure we destroy this thing.

"But he's a human! Granted a powerful and very scary human creature of some kind, but there's no way he's smart enough as me, let alone YOU, to be qualified to oversee OUR work!" Peridot loudly rants as she flails her arms around.

"Peridot I assure you he is more than capable—" Pearl tries to reason but is interrupted.

"No! Unless he proves himself will I never even consider looking to him for technical advice!" She loudly and firmly states with her arms crossed.

"Seriously?" I ask her incredulously. "We just went through this crap already! What do I have to do to prove that I know my stuff and am not dim-witted as you think I am?!" I ask more than slightly annoyed.

There is a tense silence for everyone as Peridot considers what I said. Slowly, everyone turns to her still hulking and intact robot. As soon as her face turns back to me, she has the same smug and creepy grin on her face as when she was pulverizing Pearl. "He he heeee." She chuckles darkly.

My demeanor takes a dive downwards as my shoulders slump. "Aw crap." I moan. _'Looks like I'm not getting any sleep tonight.'_

* * *

 **And scene. Ahhhh, feels good to get back into working on episode chapters. As you may have guessed from the ending of this chapter, things are going to be a bit more complicated for Marcus. You'd think Peridot would be a bit more willing to NOT piss off the human creature that could turn into a demonic homicidal monster that could tear her apart limb from limb but when it comes to intelligence, she just can't stand the idea of said brute being smarter than her.**

 **Ah well. The next chapter may be a bit shorter than what you expect from me but since it'll be my own, and it'll revolve primarily around a fight will I expect it to be around 3000 words or less. I don't have anything major planned for it so that's why I don't imagine it's going to be as long.**

 **Nothing new has happened to me besides playing some GTA V more often in an attempt to scrounge up more money so I can become a CEO and purchase a bunker so I can do some weapon upgrades and such. Some of my friends also don't like playing it as much considering the amount some items cost so I want to purchase and get as much as I can so we have more to play with it. I do the same gameplay time with For Honor, I just need to move my willingness to play that over and over again to GTA and get lots of money for it. Don't know how effective it'll be but I won't know until I try. I'm up around $500k in the past few days so I must be doing something alright.**

 **Either way though, my future plans of note will be RTX so that's something I'm going to look forward to. Also I changed my profile name from Xcantax to Vendicor so no one gets confused. No particular reason just thought I could try something different.  
**

 **In any case, thank you all for your support, have a great day and as always, have fun reading.**


	53. 51 Robot Fight's: Second Round

"Where is he?" Pearl asks worried.

"Do you think he should have been back by now?" Amethyst asks next to her.

"I don't know. He's made some unique items before but nothing of this scale. I hope he didn't hurt himself or anything."

"He probably ran away after he realized he couldn't match my superior intellect." Peridot snarks and lets out a laugh.

The next day has come around and its morning at the crack of dawn back at the barn. Seeing as everyone is on a tight time-table with the cluster and all, and how Peridot's ego won't let them continue on construction of the drill, Marcus and Peridot opted to go the very next morning in their competition since it was already really late from yesterdays battle. It would give time for Peridot to make repairs, Marcus to make his robot, and for there to be better lighting in the sunlight.

The gems ignore the small gems boastful attitude in favor of keeping an eye out for the hybrids robot. They offered to help but Marcus told them no since he didn't want Peridot to call him a cheater or no fair if he were to receive outside help. After Pearl gave him her schematics, he threw a tarp over his helicopter and retreated into his base and hasn't come out since. Even going as far as to completely lock it down from anyone entering.

"Anything yet?" Steven asks as he comes up to her. Looking from him to the horizon from where Marcus's home is, she brings up the Barrett he left yesterday and scans one more time to see if she can spot him. After not seeing anything, she looks down and shakes her head no. "Mmmm." Steven moans and turns around before pulling out his phone. "I'm gonna call him." He says and he speed dials him.

"Oh c'mon!" Peridot says. "This is pointless! He's obviously not coming. We should just forget about him and focus on the Cluster already." She proposes but no one is listening to her. "Hey! I said he's—!"

"On his way." Garnet interrupts the green gem. She looks confused at the fusion but she simply moves her visor.

"He's coming!" Steven jogs back to everyone with his phone held up.

"What?!"

"I see him!" Pearl announces with a smile while looking through the scope.

"Where?!" Peridot demands while grabbing Pearl's sash. The gem in question looks at the imp crossly before pulling her sash from her grip. She then proceeds to pull out the magazine and bullet in the chamber before handing the rifle to Peridot.

"See for yourself." She grabs the rifle and the sheer size of the weapon looks comical in the small gems possession, especially when she tries to orient the weapon properly to look through it but fails miserably. "Ugh! Here." Pearl grumbles as she crouches to her height and moves the gems small hands to the proper spots. There is some grunting involved, as well as 'clod' being mentioned a few times, but Peridot is able to properly hold the weapon. She looks angrily at the smiling pearl before looking through the scope towards the general direction they said. A slight tilt from Pearl's finger, and Peridot is staring at what's heading for them. Her eyes widen as the weapon goes slack in her hands.

* * *

Making a giant robot overnight was something I was not expecting to do.

After it was clear I needed to prove myself, as much as I don't want to and instead make her change her mind, to the little green technician I went home and only got a few hours sleep before spending the rest of the night working on my new robot.

Thanks to the schematics that Pearl gave me, I had a general idea of how to get things started for my robot warrior. After my new memories were unlocked, and seeing how easily the gems were able to make their bots, I had a much easier time in making what I needed with all the materials I had on hand. With that being said, if I was making a new giant robot that was almost as tall as the barn and be on par with Peridot in my base, I needed a new entrance that was sorely overdue. So while I was working on my robot along with a few droids to quickly make parts, the majority of my droids, including the plug droid, had the task of tearing through the earth and a wall of my base upwards through the cliff. Just as I was done with my robot, my droids were able to make a large ramp going up from my base to the outside, where a large swatch of land between my house and the city would slide away and allow anything large and cumbersome to go through with ease.

To name a few, my motorcycle, my Falcon muscle car, my new dually truck, several tons of materials that can be carted in on a trailer, and a several feet tall giant robot that comes speeding out of the hole.

My robot speeds out of the entrance and after taking momentary flight, I slam into the ground and speed away while with a flick of a switch inside my cockpit, the entrance closes. My robots legs have two forms of legs, one where there are rails and wheels touching the ground that helps keep it stable and allows it to skate along the ground with ease, and the second transforms into regular legs and feet that allow it to walk, move and brace itself like Peridot's. It doesn't take me long to speed through the country side towards the barn with the sun starting to peek over the horizon. With it being pretty early in the morning, I didn't have to worry about many people spotting my robot speeding along since their most likely still asleep. As I go over the many hills leading to the barn, I smile at the screens in front of me that show the outside in front and to the sides as I spot my friends, and one acquaintance, standing in front of the barn. Also spotting the green robot that belongs to Peridot, I can't help but feel excited and tense about the whole thing. I'm basically bringing in an untested and prototype giant robot against another who's already had experience and I'm worried about what might happen. Granted in the end we are still going to work on the drill if I lose, but I don't want Peridot second guessing everything I do. That'll make the progress go even slower. I have to win this for a mutually agreed relationship between us.

Passing over the last hill, I stop just in front of everyone while angling my legs to the side that makes me slide to a stop in front of everyone. With the sun at my back, the light accentuates the full view of my creation.

The legs are slim but segmented multiple pieces of armor all over them and allows for slightly greater movement than what Pearls was. With the flick of another switch, the feet plates fold up, taking in the wheels and rails and adding the plates to make it regular again. The chest, which houses me and the cockpit, is somewhat bulky and wide but works to accommodate me. The arms are pretty thick as well with armored plates to add mass and armor, along with the fists being fully articulated like a person's hand. The head is mostly rounded with a T-shape orange visor along with two circles on both top sides of its head. The controls inside are numerous but the main part that allows me to be pretty accurate in how it moves is the goo linking console used on Peridot's ship. It's definitely weird with it being linked ot my mind and all at first but with even one hand, I can control how it moves pretty well. To top off the look of my robot, I painted the whole thing black with red accents going over the arms and legs, and blue stripes on the chest and back. The overall size makes it just a foot taller than Peridot's.

The Vindicator lives.

There is a moment of silence as everyone takes in my creation before I make it get down on one knee and angle it to the ground. Pulling a switch, the front of my cockpit pulls up and the other half down, allowing me to grab a bar on top and pull myself out onto the grassy floor. A mix of awe and open mouth gaping is plastered on everyone as they take in my entrance and my new attire. Taking a page from Pearl's book, I took the base design of the suits racers use in racing speedways and added my own touches. The main color of the suit is dark green with black stripes going down along the outsides of my arms from my shoulders, over my gems, which there is a zipper used to open and reveal them, and down to my black leather fingerless gloves. As I walk forward past my friends, their eyes still glued to my form, I stop in front of my opponent and smile. "Well, I'm here. Ready to get started?" I ask.

She continues to gape at me and Vindicator before shaking her head and glaring at me. "This changes nothing! I will prove that I am STILL the better builder just like how I beat her!" Peridot rants and says as she points to Pearl.

"Hm!" She turns away with a scoff and her head pointed upwards.

"We'll see about that." I mutter to her.

"YES! We'll see!" She shouts and starts climbing into her robot.

"Let's do this." I mutter and turn around before heading to my robot.

"Marcus." Just as I grab the bar to pull me into my seat, Steven's voice stops me. One hand on the bar and a foot in the pilots seat, I look back as he and the others come up to me. "Are you sure about this?" He asks a little worried.

The others have similar expressions of worry but I give them a reassuring look and smile. "Relax. I got this." I tell them and climb on in. Flicking a few switches, everyone steps back as Vindicator stands tall but the door closes. "I built this didn't I?!" I reply back to them just before the door closes up. With everything battened down and secured, I motion for Vindicator to move forward. Everyone else moves well-enough away from us to give us enough room to fight without fear of crushing anything or anyone. Peridot and I get to a respectable distance from each other and get ready.

Peridot lets out a series of laughs as we carefully circle ourselves. "Well, it seems you're not just a brute and can actually build something." She braces her legs and her claws start whirring in circular fashion. "You ready to get this over with?" She asks me.

I smile at the question she gives me as I too brace myself for our fight. Both of my arms move forward and the press of a button activates the metal tonfa's under Vindicator's arms. They fold outwards past the hands with a metal 'clang'. Seeing as how she accentuates her weapons, I do the same with mine and bring both my arms up. "Oh I'm ready. Question is…" I bring my arms down and swing them back up, crossing my arms in front of my face. "Are you?!" I yell through the loud speakers on my mech.

"Raaaah!" Peridot yells and charges forward.

"Haaaaa!" I charge forward too.

* * *

The Crystal Gems watch in awe as the two titans clash together. Peridot swings her right claw to strike Vindicators head but he ducks. He brings up his left tonfa and smacks the arm away before bringing its right up and striking her in the side. Peridot lets out a yelp of surprise at getting hit but quickly recovers as she brings her left claw up and slams it downward onto Vindicators right shoulder, forcing it to its knee. Marcus grunts from the impact and is dazed just enough where Peridot brings her right claw to her and backhands Vindicator away from her. The audience winces from the hit as the robot is sent flying away from them. The ground gets a large grove of earth torn away from Vindicator landing and sliding on the dirt. It remains motionless for a second before it slowly tries to ge+t up.

"Hahahahahaha!" Peridot laughs as she activates the springs on her bot and launches her high into the air. Marcus looks up and see the green robot preparing to back down to the ground, right on top of him. As she heads straight for him, Vindicator rolls to the side just before Peridot lands where he was laying. Taking the chance, Vindicator swings its right arm straight towards her legs. The tonfa connects with her knees, making her yell and her legs bend. Before he gets up, Vindicator thrusts his leg out and impacts it with Peridot's. The green gem lets out a strangled cry as her robot topples backwards onto her back. With his opportunity given, Vindicator stands up before bringing both his arms up and slams them down on top green robot. He hits around where Peridot is sitting to avoid hurting her… too much. But she is jostled around as again and again he pummels his robot. Before he can continue however, Peridot brings her right clawed arm up and grips Vindicator left wrist.

*Rrrrrr- Clang!*

The metal of the wrist warps for a second before with crushing prowess, the tonfa metal piece breaks off, sending it sailing through the air till it lands in front of Steven and the others. They look at the metal bit before staring back at the fight. Vindicator brings his right hand up and slams it onto the claw that's gripping him. The attack allows him to get loose and moves back to get some distance.

Peridot struggles to get up, letting out a series of grunts before she finally gets onto her two feet and smiles. "Ha! I got you!" She points her clawed arm to where Vindicators broken wrist is. "You might as well give up now. Who knows how long it'll be before your creation crumples of and falls apart." She teases the pilot. Marcus stares at Peridot before looking down at Vindicator's wrist. Losing one of his weapons puts him at a slight disadvantage but he's not out yet. The hand remains unresponsive for a second before the fingers curl up and forms a fist. With a smile, Marcus brings up both Vindicators arms up again in a boxers stance, showing he's ready to continue. Peridot grits her teeth and growls. "Fine! If that's how you want to play." She picks her robots right leg up into the air and slams it down. "Let's play!" She challenges and charges forward.

This time Vindicator doesn't move forward and waits for her to come into his range. When she gets close enough, he swings his left arm in a wide arc to the left and impacts her in the side of her robot. It dazes her for a second, allowing Vindicator to press his attack. He moves closer and brings his left leg up to impact against the side of Peridot's robot. The hit makes her fall to the ground but he continues. Bringing his right tonfa in an upwards angle he impacts his opponent, sending her back onto her feet. Peridot looks up from getting tossed around and before she can do anything the fight continues.

Vindicator punches her in the side with his fist, before hitting with his tonfa and does it a couple more times before ending with a Spartan kick to just below where Peridot sits, sending her flying back several feet until she lands on her back in a heap.

"WOOOO-HOOO! YEAAAAAH MARCUS!"

"Way to go brother!"

"You got this Marcus!"

"Take her down."

Marcus glances to the side at his family's cheering. He inclines Vindicator's body forward in a way of nodding to them before he steps forward towards the struggling green robot. "Had enough yet Peridot?" He asks her.

She grunts a bit before rolling onto her front and pushing herself up. "No! Not at all! I'm far from done!" She angrily shouts at him. Before he can get closer, she aims one of her claws at him. He looks confused since he's standing well out of her range, but it makes him even more confused as she smirks.

With the flick of a button, Peridot makes the outstretched claw shoot out from her arm, making it sale through the air straight towards Vindicator. Marcus can only widen his eyes in surprise before the claw impacts the pilot block. With an evil smirk, she hits another button and the claw activates.

Both pincers start to constrict and close on where the pilot is being housed. "Marcus!" The spectators yell his name as the metal starts to warp horribly, allowing sparks to start flying in every which way from the action as it dangerously gets crushed.

"Damn." Marcus grunts as he watches his monitors start to crack and go on the fritz. Quickly taking the initiative, he grab a lever above him and yanks it as hard as he can. With pressurized air being released, the front door of his seat is shot outwards, giving his vision back and forcing the claw crushing him to be dislodged. Peridot grunts as the claw is sent back to her as she gets back onto her feet. She growls at seeing him best her so quickly. Her action may have been shortened so quickly but it was enough to temporarily break his controls as evident with him frantically grabbing and hitting switches in his cockpit. Seeing her chance, she charges at him.

* * *

"C'mon c'mon c'mon!" I repeat over and over again as I try to get my control working. Without my monitors and controls in front of me, I've severely limited my control schemes. Activating my backup controls, the two sticks controlling the arms move closer for me to grab them and panels move up for me to put my feet in, giving me control of Vindicators legs. "Alright, now I just- Arh!" I grunt as a powerful force knocks into me, jostling me horribly in my seat before I suddenly find myself on my back and staring at the sky. Before I can get up, Peridot lands on my robot and looks down at me directly since both of our cockpits are now open for the both of us to see each other.

"Ha! You lost!" She yells as she stares down at me. "What, did you think you could defeat me? Yes I imagine one-on-one without the use of our technology you could best me, but this is my domain! I'm the Homeworld technician and engineer built for this stuff!" She yells down at me with increased malice. "Your nowhere near my level! You're not smart enough to defeat me!" I flinch at each of her words as she gets louder and louder. "You're simply a fighter! A brute! YOU'RE…." She looks like she's struggling with something before gritting her teeth.

"YOU'RE… A MONSTER!"

An echo goes off in the country side, the last word she uttered echoing from everyone to hear.

I stare at her in surprise, before everything starts to come back to me.

* * *

The first time.

" _Marcus… no…" She cries out as the beast continues moving, not at all deterred by the mention of that name. "Please no… don't… Don't you… don't you remember me?" She tries desperately to talk it down but the creature doesn't listen, it just continues moving closer and closer with saliva dripping down its maw. "I don't… I don't… You can't…" Lapis's words start to become mismatched and she closes her eyes as it starts crawling over her, its limbs being placed on each side of her, trapping her._

* * *

The second time.

 _The monster takes up nearly the entire hallway and stares down at them with blood red eyes. All three of their weapons shake in their hands, unable to reload their weapons due to the sheer fear that this thing exhibits onto them. They continue to back away from it but for every step they take back, the size of the creature dwarfs two. They finally get the sense to start reloading their weapons but its too late. The monster couches low to the ground, and pounces._

* * *

I look down, a shadow going over my eyes as I remember the times I became, literally, a monster. The lives I almost took, the lives I did take.

"You're right." I say in a low voice.

"Huh?" Peridot says in confusion, no doubt not expecting me to readily agree with her.

"I am a monster." I say with a bit more volume. I look straight at her, tears getting close to break through my eyes, as I press a button on controls. The two circles on the sides of Vindicator's head open up. "But that WILL NOT DEFINE MEEEE!"

I press the triggers.

*BRRRRRRRRRR*

"AHHHHH!" Peridot yells in surprise as multiple .50 caliber bullets escape from the barrels on the side of his head and pepper Peridot's robot. I don't aim for her specifically, instead the bullets impact all around her and the outer armor of her bot, sending spark and ricochets all over. She brings her arms in front of her face as some sort of protection and it's just the distraction I need as she steps back. I quickly manipulate Vindicator to get to his feet but I don't let up on the bullets. I take a few steps forward before finally stopping the onslaught, and attack.

"Hraa!" I yell as I bring my left fist forward and punch Peridot's robot. She recoils from the hit but I continue. Bringing the right tonfa up, I hit her and continue to hit her again and again. Another fist punch leads to a backhand with the same fist while I do the same with the tonfa. Peridot eventually manages to grab Vindicator's right arm and employ's the crushing action just under his elbow but quickly punching the joint in her claw causes it to seize up, allowing me to pull it out but not without some armor pieces were broken off. We eventually start to trade blows against each other as things start to get more intense for the both us. Pieces of our robots start to fly off but we continue to fight regardless.

Eventually, we lock arms with each other and glare at each other with gritted teeth. "Why do you continue fighting?! It's pointless!" She shouts and pushes a bit harder on me.

I grind my teeth as I stare angrily at her. "I can't stop fighting! I will NEVER stop fighting!" I shout back with renewed vigor, forcing her to step back this time. "I can't afford to ever give up!" I shoot a shot burst of bullets at her, making her recoil and allows me to hook my right arm under her legs. "You think I'm some brainless brute but I'm NOT!" I hoist her up over my head.

"Whoa!" Peridot yelps as she suddenly is looking directly up at the sky.

Already I can hear the metal in Vindicator's arms strain from the immense weight of Peridot's robot but I don't stop. "I am a Gem-Human hybrid! And you… WILL…!"

*RRRRRR-CRINK*

The supports in Vindicators arms strain and finally give. The previously broken left wrist snaps and the right arm breaks, sending Peridot to the ground.

"FAAAAAALLLLL!"

*CRAAAACCKK!*

With a fierce cry, I bring Vindicator's right leg up just as Peridot comes down towards the ground. With a loud crack of metal breaking that echoes multiple times, Vindicator executes the backbreaker on her robot. Her entire robot almost splits in half from the action, sending a large going horizontally along its body as it rolls onto its back.

Steven and the gems all stare in open-mouthed amazement at the action as the only sound is the sparks flying from both machines.

*Thud*

As well as the right arm of Vindicator. Once everything settles, Vindicator goes onto his knees with a loud thud. As soon as he does, all remaining controls quickly shut down. _'He's spent… no more.'_ I think. Vindicator can no longer fight, but as I look at Peridot she is not in any better shape. After letting my controls drop, I step out of Vindicator and slowly walk over to my opponent.

"Nah. Arrrr! Gah!" Peridot struggles as she tries to get out of her broken machine before falling off the side flat on her back. She groans as she stares up at the sky but as I step into her view, she sighs. "So… you won." She says depressed. "You are the better builder and I will listen to whatever you instruct on the construction of the drill." She drones off some more before finishing with a sigh.

I look down at the defeated and depressed gem before I extend a hand to her. She looks confused at the gesture before I shake my hand a little, gesturing for her to take it. After a few more seconds, she gives me her hand, allowing me to pull her onto her feet. She stands up and looks away from me. "Peridot… I don't care about being the better builder. I'm good with human and some gem tech… but if we are talking about straight up using gem tech in general, you have me beat. No doubt about that." I tell her. Truth of the matter is that while I am good at working with Homeworld technology, I am only good at reverse engineering it with human tech to make it useable to me. I have not the faintest idea of how to manufacture, keep it properly maintained and so on and so forth. "I mostly jury-rig what I make. Human tech is my forte. Homeworld is yours. I won't deny that. I only did this fight so I can prove to you that I can help with the drill like with Pearl." I gesture to the gem as she and the others start making their way to us. "Not someone who can just sit on the sidelines and not do anything." She looks at me surprised at my statements to her. I crouch to her level and look at her directly. "The Cluster threatens everyone Peridot. You, me, humanity, the Crystal gems… Steven." She glances at my brother before looking back at me. "I just want you to make sure you know that we have more that can help than just you and Pearl." I sincerely tell her. She may have tried to kill us and hurt us in the past, but as I see here now in her base form, I think I can put my malice aside. I extend my hand in a handshake to her. "Your not alone on this I think we can do a better job if we work together. Can we please put our differences aside and work together to save this planet?" I ask her sincerely. Despite everything and our differences, I do hope Peridot agrees on my view on the matter.

She stares at me with this unreadable expression, but as she stares at my hand her mouth slightly parts open. She switches views from me and my hand before she steps past me. At first I feel bad at the idea of her not agreeing with me, but she doesn't go that far before she stares up at Vindicator. The machine continues to let out sparks every now and then but still remains somewhat functional with a little tweaking. She stares at him for a bit before staring at the gems, who all have hopeful expressions on their face from my words. She then looks down and closes her eyes as she clenches her fists. She then looks towards me firmly. "Come with me."

Without another word, she simply walks off. Now all of us are sporting looks of confusion as she walks away with her hands behind her back. "Uhhh, okay." I say hesitantly and follow her. As I pass by the others, I give them a shrug before following after her. _'Huh, wonder where we're going?'_

* * *

Sometime later and one warp travel later, we make it to our apparent destination.

"What… is this?" I ask in awe at where we are. What's in front of me is what looks to be some sort of giant saucer like ship buried partly in the ground with giant vines and leaves covering it all.

"An Era-1 derelict Homeworld space ship. It was left here during the rebellion and has been inoperable ever since." She quickly explains to me and walks towards it.

"Oh… well what are we doing here then?" I ask her after understanding what she said. _'A ship from the rebellion… amazing.'_

"To get something. Follow me." She answers without stopping. Without much more to say, we continue moving through the ancient vessel. While Peridot moves through the vessel, I can't help but stare all around me at how this place is. When compared to the more modern gem tech I faced back when Peridot and Jasper first invaded, I can't help but be amazed at the difference in architecture between this saucer ship, and the hand ship from before.

"Man, this place is crazy." I can't help but voice my thoughts.

"Yes well, for a few thousand year old ship it is still somewhat… hardy."

"What do you mean? Whoa." I turn to ask her but I almost fall in a large hole before quickly side-stepping it. "What happened here?" I ask because the giant hole in the floor and the broken cogs above look more recently broken than the rest of the thousands of years old derelict ship.

"This was a temporary base of operations for me while I was hiding from you Crystal Gems. That hole was from a failed trap that your friends escaped from before they found me." She explains. _'Oh yeah, I think I remember the others mentioning something like that happening.'_ I think before she continues. "This may be completely unable to fly but it's subsystems still proved operational useful to suit my needs." She says as she scrapes her hand along a piece of a dusty wall. That wall soon leads to a particularly destroyed doorway into another room. "This… is the man control room."

"Whoa." I mouth as I stare at the controls and monitors of the room. Despite how the room is, I can't help but look at the giant hole in the ceiling. "What happened there?" I ask pointing to the hole.

"My escape attempt." She answers simply. "I got away… but Steven was able to take my leg." She answers slightly depressed.

"Oh yeah, I remember him telling me about that." I reply with a nod.

"Yeeeesss, that reminds me. Why weren't you here trying to apprehend me like the others were?" She asks looking back at me. The both of us are standing in the middle of the control room looking at each other. "From what I remember since I first saw you, you've always been with or at least near Steven and those Crystal Gems." She tells me.

I look at her suspiciously. "So?" I ask with crossed arms.

"So why weren't you? I imagine if you were here you would have been better able to help them capture me what with your… special traits." She hesitates the last words. From how she says it, I can only imagine she's talking about the… special part of myself.

"I was… dealing… and preoccupied with some stuff. Very… important stuff." I grimly say as I look away from her. The memories of what I had to deal are something I was hoping to forget, but let's be honest, there is no way that is going to happen at all… ever. "I'd rather not talk about it, yet."

She stares at me for a few seconds before shrugging with closed eyes. "If that's how you want it." She concedes to what I want and walks deeper into the room.

"Hey hey Peridot." I quickly get her attention.

"What?" She asks a little impatient.

I fold my fingers over each other and rub my hands in nervousness. _'I can't believe I'm going to ask her of this.'_ I take a deep breath and look at her. "Can you… not mention to the others what you saw and faced back at the beach when you first arrived? You know when I… changed." I hesitantly say to her.

Her impatient look turns to surprise at the sincerity I ask her of this. She looks unsure at first of how to respond, her face going through multiple phases before looking confused. "Um, okay then." She agrees, letting a huge weight off my chest.

I let out a breath of relief and look at her gratefully. "Thank you Peridot. That… thing doesn't speak for me and I don't know what the others will say if they found out."

"Well, it sounds like you have a lot to think about then?" She asks with a smug smile. I should be angry with her but really, I'm not, just more so grateful that she'll keep this to her.

"I do. I do."

"In that case, as a peace offering, and a bit of proof that I will keep my word so long as you will not hurt or shatter me…" She says the sentence in a sort of question, to which I nod, making her smile. "Allow me to give you this." She turns away from me and walks over to a compartment as the consoles. I step up behind her to see she's staring carefully at the wall. "Aha!" She triumphantly says and walks to piece of the wall before pressing a button. The wall lights up into a green square and it pulls like a cabinet. "I installed this little compartment as a means to hide stuff should you all come looking for me. Unfortunately for me, I was only able to put in one thing before they came knocking at my door. She explains as she blindly moves her hand through the cabinet. The problem is that apparently she designed it when she had her limb enhancers on so her small form now only allows her to barely reach in with one harm and blindly search through the thing. "Fortunately for you… c'mon where is it?!" She angrily states with a bit angst in her voice. "I know I left it- There you are!" She excitedly says and pulls something out. I don't get the chance to see it as she pulls it out in front of her. She looks like she's looking at it for a second and with a sigh, she turns around.

My eyes widen as I see what it is that she's holding. "Is… is that…?"

"Yes, I believe this is yours." She confirms, and extends both her hands with her palms open, holding my Colt Anaconda.

'Wow _… it's… been so long.'_ I can't help but think as my hand slowly grips the handle. As I bring it up, I stare at the weapon that was always intended to be my backup in case of emergencies. The frame is still pristine and looks just as beautiful and deadly as I remember. I can't help to flip open the cylinder and examine the chambered bullets.

* * *

 _*BANG*_

 _A shot rings out._

 _Both of them stop at the sudden noise._

 _An uncomfortable silence falls onto the two of them at who shot._

 _A trail of blood flows down the monsters chest._

 _It looks down at a small hole that formed on its rapidly reddening fur. It brings a clawed hand up and places it on the wound before taking it away, seeing the red transfer to its furred clawed hand. It looks up with widened surprised eyes at Jasper at the turn of events, who is surprised as well._

 _*BANG*BANG*_

* * *

The memory of when Peridot first fired the gun surfaces in Marcus's mind as he stares at the three spent bullet casings in the chamber. Peridot's face forms one of worry as she sees the neutral expression that adorns his. Now that she thinks about it, she doesn't have anymore leverage in making sure the gems don't shatter or keep her bubbled for all eternity like the corrupted ones in the temple.

And now here she was, alone with one of the most dangerous creatures she has ever met, and she just gave him the gun that she shot him with. _'Yeah, probably should have thought this through some more.'_

*Clink*

The sound of metal impacting the ground completely shocks her from her thoughts. The empty room accentuating the impact noise quite loudly for a tiny piece. She looks on as he slowly empties the chamber.

*Clink*

The slowness he does it, the sound each shell casing makes as they bounce off the ground make Peridot even more worried about what he might do.

*Clink*

The last empty casing falls from the chamber, leaving the three remaining intact bullets ready to be fired, should he need to. By this point Peridot is very subtly shaking at what he might do to her now that they are alone with her being completely defenseless.

The cold blue eyes bore into her past the gun, making her even more scared of the idea that this is where she will be—

*… Clink… Clink… Clink*

Peridot looks down confused, worry no longer evident on her form as the final three intact bullets fall from the guns cylinder, leaving the dangerous weapon harmless for now.

*Click*

She looks up as Marcus snaps the cylinder back into the weapon and proceeds to place it into the back of his pants belt, with a smile no less on his face. He smiles down at her, not a creepy or evil smile but one that reads sincerity. He crouches to her level and extends his hand to her.

"Thank you Peridot. I appreciate it."

 **And as usual, I completely did more than I originally thought I was going to do. Seriously I thought I was going to do the fight and that's it, but I forgot to take into account the descriptions and that last part surprised me a little too. I didn't expect things to get this emotional the very least but nonetheless I think I'm alright with this.**

 **Onto me now. I recently had gotten a copy of an original Xbox and I can't tell you how happy I am to have it in my possession. The game in question is an oldy from a series I love called Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes. The reason why I am happy to have this is because I never finished playing the game. My original xbox broke before I could finish playing it and broke the copy I had. Since then, I have been hounded for years of not being able to play this game because it was the one game that was not on the list of backwards compatible games for the 360. It's predecessor, Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders was on the list, which I still had fun playing, but I was never able to get another original Xbox to play Heroes. With Microsoft announcing the new list of original xbox games coming to the Xbox One X, you have no idea how happy I was at the idea and possibility that I'd finally be able to play it after so so long. It's still a long shot because I don't know many people who played the series but the idea is still amazing to think about.**

 **Also just so you all know, my high for Steven Universe after the recent bomb dropped has passed so after the next chapter, I'm going to go back to taking turns in working on all my stories.**

 **Thank you all for reading, hope you enjoyed the fight, fav, follow, review, don't, whatever you feel like, and as always, have a great day and have fun reading.**


	54. 52 Too Far

"No no nooo! I told you we can't do that type of layout!"

"And I told you we can if we do it THIS way!"

"But the power distribution will be too high and the wires can fry!"

"What massive power output could there be to fry these wires?!"

"Hmmm, oh I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with GIANT LASER CANNON you have!"

"It's a hostile precaution! We have no idea what we'll find on the journey to the Cluster and it pays to be prepared."

"Prepared for what?! Evil sentient molten rocks! That turret is producing a lot of power and if we don't do something it'll fry the wires! We need to spread out the power distribution among dozens of wires so if something goes wrong, we can afford to lose them."

"We don't need over a dozen wires! We just need a few reinforced ones to transfer the power."

"And I told you we can't afford to!"

"And I know exactly what I'm doing too! I was built for this!"

"And I—!"

"But you—!"

Marcus and Peridot continue to scream and bicker with each other while leaning over an assortment of components they made. Already because of the two of them some of the major and bulkier components for the machine were already made but they still needed a lot more work to do before they even think of inputting them into the main body of their machine. They still need a body to input it all too.

Meanwhile everyone else is sitting or standing off to the side, their eyes glancing from left to right between the two of them as they continue to yell at each other. Pearl is busy working on the drill part of the machine on the chalkboard, Marcus has the electronics and making sure everything comes together, and Peridot gravitates between the two of them. Right now though, the two of them have some… creative differences on the matters of the power and engine basically for the machine, hence their flailing arms and heated yells.

"How long have they been going at it?" Steven asks, his upper half laying on the hay bale while his legs are on the ground.

"I don't know. Like, an hour maybe." Amethyst says from her seat on the bale next to him.

"Alright, I'm back I—" Garnet begins to say as she steps up to the others but stops as she notices the teenage hybrid and little green gem yelling at each other. "They're still going at it? I left over an hour ago." She says staring at them, chewing on a piece of straw.

"An hour then."

"Ughhh! I can't work like this." Pearl grumbles before stomping away from the chalkboard and in front of the others. "Will you two knock it off already?! We need to work together to—!"

"Pint-sized imp!"

"Deformed hybrid clod!"

They completely ignore her, or haven't noticed her, as they now start flinging insults at each other. Pearl lets out a sigh and rubs the bridge of her nose. Garnet walks past her and moves closer to the two. "Hey!"

"WHAT?!" The two of them glare at the fusion in the midst of their anger. Garnet doesn't respond, keeping her same neutral expression as the two of them stare.

"… I chased away those cows."

The statement immediately diminishes their anger at how… simple it sounded, plus the straw in her mouth adds to her expression. The two of them look back to each other, then the pieces of equipment between them before they look away blushing. "Yes yes. Very good." Peridot says after clearing her throat.

"Mm-hm. Quite." He agrees with her and picks up to the panel. "Let's get back to the others shall we?"

"Yes we shall." She says and walks back to the others ahead of Marcus. The both of them pass Garnet as they make their way to others.

"Clods... Muddy clods... -running out of ways to say 'clods'!"

Marcus stops at the tape recorder voice of Peridot saying clod and fast forwarding to the other words. Peridot brings the tape recorder out from in front of her and chuckles. "He he he he." She smugly cackles but doesn't stop walking.

"Mmmm." Marcus stops and moans in annoyance as with one hand, his gem glows as he starts to pull out one of his swords.

"Noooo."

"Mmmmmmm." He moans even more annoyed as Garnet orders him not to. He lets the half pulled weapon disappear before grabbing the paneled box with both hands and walking to the others. "Alright, we good?" He asks everyone after putting down the piece of equipment on the hay bale.

"Yes, let's get to work." Garnet says with a smile.

"Eh-hem." Everyone looks to Peridot. "Before we begin… would you mind un-fusing? It's making me incredibly uncomfortable."

Everyone shifts their stares to the fusion in question, who stares at the green gem with a stoic expression.

* * *

*Click*

"WHAT?! ... WHAT'D I SAY?!" Peridot asks loudly confused. I stare at Peridot with a smug smile on my face, seeing her now in this predicament. After her request to have Garnet unfuse, she promptly didn't take too kindly to that and now Peridot is in a time-out; tied to the fence with a child leash and harness equipped. She notices me smiling at her. "Shut up." She grumbles while glaring at me.

"He he he." Now it's my turn to laugh and walk away from her to join up with the others.

"Do we really have to do that?" Steven asks us

"Yes." I tell him without hesitation. The both of us may have come to a compromise and she seems alright, but that doesn't mean I absolutely have to like her and the arguments from earlier have left me just a little bit irked at her.

"Her having free reign of the place made me incredibly uncomfortable." Garnet says.

"Uraaa!" Looking back, we see Peridot struggling to move with the child leash on, as well as flailing her arms around to grab the microwave that seems just out of her reach. She manages to stick he foot out though and nudge it closer to her.

I shrug at her attempts and we go back to working on the drill. While Peridot continues to try to work on the microwave, Garnet is sifting through the junk in the barn while Steven and Amethyst gather some materials that Pearl needs as she's cutting through an old jet engine and I look at the drawings on the chalkboard. _'Okay, every things looking good so far. A lot of the components have already been made or close to being completed but we still need to find some sort of body or pilot seat basically to control the machine. We also need a drill to tunnel through the earth. I'd use my plug droid but Peridot will no doubt flip out at seeing, make a fuss over it and possibly try to take it over as her own again. Maybe we can—'_

"Here you go, Pearl!" Pearl and Amethyst come by carrying a bunch of metal bits and drop them at her feet. She turns off the welding torch and flips open her welding mask.

"Oh, good. Hmm..." She looks curiously at the bits of metal before looking disappointed. "No... No, no, no, no, I said I needed tungsten. Tungsten?" She reiterates. _'Tungsten?'_ I think while walking up to them.

"Uh... what does 'tungsten' look like?" Steven asks her.

"Well it's—"

"Tungsten. Ahh." Amethyst decides to give her own explanation and points at her sticking out tongue.

"Oh good. We do have some. I'll get it." I say with a smile as I pull out my sword.

"What?!" Steven gasps in surrpise

"Uhhhh?!" Amethyst does the same with her tongue still sticking out.

"Hahahaha! Relax I'm not gonna take your tongue." I kid with her and dematerialize my sword. I chuckle a few more times at my own joke. The others don't share my humor as Steven and Amethyst look slightly frightened and Pearl looks at me annoyed. "What? Too dark?" All of them nod. I shake my head but a thought quickly springs forward. "Wait, you needed Tungsten right?" I ask Pearl, to which she nods. "Perfect. I have a crate filled with thousands and thousands of Tungsten rounds you can use."

"Tungsten can be used for firearms ammunition?" She asks curiously.

I nod, "Sure. Their heavy composition and component make-up allows them to make great ammo for some of the more heavier and damage dealing weapons." I quickly explain to her.

"Great!" She says happily with her hands clasped together. "If you could bring back several pounds worth, I can figure just how much exactly we'll need. We will need a lot of fire though to melt them down to the proper shapes we need." She mutters the last part as she looks at the welding torch in her hand.

"Got that covered." I say as I begin walking back to home. "My forge has got what we need. I'll be back soon!" I call back and start jogging back home. _'Man, Garnet was right. All comedy is derived from fear.'_ I place a hand on the side of my head but I don't stop moving. _'Gotta work on my comedy skills.'_

With that last thought in my head, the trip to my base and back wasn't anything to brag about. After making sure that my helicopter has gone unnoticed and is still concealed, I grabbed my new truck and loaded the necessary tungsten round containers into the back before closing up the cargo container and covering it up as well. With a quick stop back at base and loading up on some more tools for us to use, pieces of my forge to melt and help shape things, plus some more electronics, and a quick check up on Vindicator to make sure he hasn't completely fallen apart, I head back to the barn. Vindicator took a bad beating from Peridot but he's still holding together somewhat. I've kept only a couple of my droids to slowly rebuild him while the rest patrol the rest of my base just in case. After locking everything back up, it's a smooth ride back to the barn with the stuff Pearl needs.

I come by to see everyone gathered around and talking but they shift their attention to me once they hear my truck pulling up. "Alright, got the stuff we need!" I announce as I climb out and head to the back. "I've got plenty of tungsten hear and enough equipment to help smelt anything we might need." I say as I drop the door in the back, ready for everything to be unloaded. "What next?"

"You're going to the Kindergarten."

"…" It takes my mind a moment to process Garnet's order. "I'm sorry, what'd you say?"

* * *

"Thanks a lot Garnet." I grumble as I examine the drill we are planning to take. Apparently, Peridot had the idea to grab one of the injector drills from the Kindergarten to act as our drill piece to the Cluster. Seeing as how none of us, except Peridot, wanted to send her alone to the ancient place, Steven and Amethyst opted to go with her while Garnet decided, without my consent, I was to be accompanying them to make sure everything went smoothly.

"Log date-7112." Peridot begins to speak into her tape recorder that Steven had given her. "The Amethyst, the Marcus and the Steven have volunteered to help me dismantle this Era 1 drill." _'Volunteer my a—'_ "How stylistically displeasing. The newer ones have a nicer finish." She says into her tape recorder as Steven stands on top of the drill and hits it in hope of dislodging the drill. Peridot says the last part as she trails a finger on the wrecked machine.

"You making more nerd notes?" Amethyst teases the green gem. She clicks off the tape recorder and addresses the purple gem.

"What is 'nerd'?"

*Thunk*

I can't help but hit my head on the machine at how radically different life being brought up as a gem is compared to human. "It means…" I say as I bring my head back and look at her, "It's a term basically for being smart."

While Amethyst snickers, Peridot looks at me a bit confused. "Can you use it in a sentence?" She asks.

"Ahem." Before I can say anything, Amethyst beats me to it. "Nerd. You are a nerd. Aaah hahahaha!" She then proceeds to laugh out loud at her own joke.

' _This going to be a long day.'_ I think as I decide to go back to looking at our prize. Steven slides down next to Amethyst.

"Amethyst! Cut that out."

"As you can see, this planet is annoying and everything is annoying. Amongst its transgressions is the need for the Amethyst to ask permission from the perma-fusion." Peridot makes another log in her recorder.

"Perma-Fusion?" I ask curiously at her Peridot. "You mean Garnet?"

"Hehe, yeah. Is that what you call Garnet?" Amethyst asks too.

"I could call her lots of things. I could call her two things! Two clods!" Peridot laughs as she gestures with two fingers about Garnet. Although the way how happy she is and funny she's trying to be seems… weird. "Walking around like she's... one clod!" She snickers, making Amethyst laugh at her antics.

Steven and I look at each other confused. "What's wrong with that?" He asks.

"She's not even fighting! She's, you know, she's just, y-you know like the... you know!" Peridot tries and fails horribly at explaining the issue with Garnet, even hitting her fists together for whatever reason to try to emphasize what she means. Steven and I have no idea what she means, especially when Steven tries to repeat her action to hopefully understand while Amethyst continues to laugh. We shrug at each other before I go back to looking at the drill.

"You're a real gem, Peri." Amethyst compliments her.

"Yes, I am... a Gem." She states, confused by the wording.

"Okay, okay. Do Steven next. What's weird about Steven?" Amethyst asks while poking Steven in the face.

"Where do I even begin! He's some sort of hybrid abomination, I don't even understand how he functions! His organic half consumes so much energy that he has to constantly feed, and he spends so much time expelling, that he has a whole room dedicated to it!" Peridot boisterously begins to give her own description of Steven, making me sigh at how little about organics she knows.

"Ah, no, something else! Talk about something else." He demands in an embarrassed tone while Amethyst continues to laugh hysterically.

"Yeah, yeah, now do Marcus." Amethyst manages to say in between her laughing.

"Well I—!"

' _I don't think so.'_ "Aah screw it." I interrupt Peridot and stand up from examining the drill. With a grunt, I grab the main body of the drill with my left hand and the drill piece with my right. With a bit of strained effort that tenses my muscles, a slight bit of tearing metal can be heard as the two pieces of metal pop off each other. Not the whole thing but only the part where I am pulling it apart. With it exposed, I pull out my sword and drive it through the opening. Once it's in deep enough, I wedge it to the side, opening the hole more and then sliding it down, separating more of the two metal pieces. With a sharp rap of my sword sliding along the metal, I pull it out and stab it into the ground should I need it again.

No one says anything else after my little demonstration right there. "I would prefer not to." I smile at Peridot's words. Remembering what they were doing, Amethyst starts to laugh again.

Peridot starts to laugh to as she examines the purple gem. "The strangest thing is, Amethyst, you think you have to listen to them! Hehe! You're the one who should be in charge!" She says through some laughing at whatever it is that she means.

"Ha, that's your best joke yet." Amethyst says with a sigh.

"No, really. Pearl is a pearl, Garnet is a fusion, I don't even know what these two are supposed to be!"

"Hey!" Steven and I complain at Peridot.

"You're the only Crystal Gem, that's actually a Gem!"

"Uhm… eh he he what?" Amethyst laughs nervously at what Peridot is saying. I'm curious too about what she's getting at.

"You outrank everyone on your team."

"Outrank?" I mouth the word.

"They should be listening to you! You're a strong, singular, fully-functional soldier, despite the fact you're defective."

Defective. That's the word that makes Amethyst's playing around stop to a halt, resulting in her face dropping. "Defective?" She asks. The same thought is in my head. _'She's defective. She seems alright to me.'_

"Well sure! You're small."

"So?"

"Well, you're not supposed to be!" Peridot continues, not fully realizing the gravity of what her words are meaning to Amethyst. "Hold on, wait, wait. Let me guess." Peridot curries over to the hole that belongs to Amethyst. "This! This is the hole you came out of! Too small, too low. The exit marks look 500 years newer than every other hole." She proceeds to examine and pick apart her birth place basically. "Hmm, this place must have been empty when you came out. No wonder you have no idea what you're supposed to look like!"

"Periot…" At the look that Amethyst is giving the green gem, I don't blame Steven for being cautious of her words. She stops Steven with a hand to his shoulder.

"What was I supposed to look like?" She asks.

"Well, you're a quartz. They're huge, loyal soldiers. You should be twice your size. Broad shouldered, intimidating. But you simply stayed in the ground too long." Peridot's explanation continues to cut through Amethyst's feelings from what I can tell.

"Are you saying I'm wrong?!" And my tell is right as she angrily asks Peridot.

Meanwhile she continues to laugh a bit, "Gemetically speaking, yes. When you think about it it's all so..." She snickers, "...funny." Peridot finishes explaining and laughs while climbing onto the injector.

"It's not funny for her Peridot." I angrily mutter at how she's blatantly saying all this to my friend, but her description of how she's supposed to look like vaguely reminds me of someone. "Huh…" I moan as I look at Amethyst and try to visualize it.

"What?!" She angrily asks at me for my staring. I don't feel bad her attitude towards me because I know she's not really angry at me.

"Twice as tall… broad shouldered… intimidat—!" My eyes widen and my mouth opens as I realize who it is that Amethyst is supposed to look like. "ARE YOU TELLING ME SHE'S SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE JASPER?!" I ask very loudly in surprise.

Everyone stares at me but it's Peridot who looks confused for a second. "Well, sure! Although not exactly like her, maybe a little smaller, but yes somewhat like Jasper." She explains like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

' _Just like…'_ I don't finish the thought as I look at my quartz friend. She looks down in both waves of being upset and angry at the news. "Oh man."

"Hey, soldier. Maybe you can help me get this hunk of drill off—"

*Fwoshing*

"Whoa!" I gasp as Amethyst interrupts Peridot by pulling out her whip and slicing off the drill head in one swipe, narrowly missing me as I fall back onto the ground.

"See, look at that!" Peridot happily exclaims. "You can do everything a normal quartz can do. Let's head back, and shove this thing in Pearl's face!" She happily says as she walks over to the warp pad.

My breathing is pretty ragged and my heart is beating quite hard after almost getting my head cleaved off. "Amethyst? Are you ok?" Steven asks her worried.

"Don't worry about it." She says in a low, depressed and angry voice. She then stalks off without another word.

The two of us stare at her as she walks off before we look at each other. With a grunt, I grab the handle of my sword and push myself off the ground. I let out a sigh as I make my sword disappear. "And things were going so well."

He nods, agreeing how bad things quickly went.

* * *

Their weren't anymore difficulties getting the drill head back to the barn. We had to go separately back to the barn via the warp pad because of the sheer size of the drill. After that, it was simply rolling it to the barn and we are ready to work on it to our hearts content.

"Oh, it's lovely!" Pearl happily states as she examines the drill. "To think we'd be using the same technology that started all this to fix it! This drill is pure irony."

"Actually, it's mostly carbonite." Peridot tells us from her usual spot on the fence.

"Would that make it 'carbony'?" Steven says from next to her while sorting through all the screws and lug nuts we have lying around here.

I don't really hear what else Steven, Peridot and Amethyst are talking about since I decide to focus more so on my forge set up. With my truck backed up to the entrance of the barn, Garnet and I unload my equipment while Pearl works on the drill piece. "This everything we're going to need?" Garnet asks while carrying the crate of tungsten bullets and I nod.

"Yes. I brought all I need to recreate my forge and the materials and metals we might need to work on the drill." I say as I begin plugging the connectors for the furnace. It's not an exact perfect smelting station that I implied but with a bit of finesse I should be able to forge what we need.

"That's good. That way we won't have to go out to grab anything we need." She says after putting down the crate and opening up the crate to look at the rounds inside. "A shame we can't use your droids. They'd be able to help wouldn't they?" She asks and I nod sadly.

"Yeah… they would." I agree with a sigh. "Unfortunately if we bring them here, there is without a doubt in my mind Peridot will completely go ballistic… like she is right now."

"Who cares about any of you! You're all just rocks! Ruddy, muddy, clumps beneath my gravity connectors! Grah!" Peridot goes off on a tantrum and starts stomping on the spot before falling over.

"Something like that." I mutter to Garnet, who nods in agreement as Amethyst comes by and stands against the inside of the barn door.

"Ugh, another one of her temper tantrums." Pearl notes after seeing the green gem stomp around. "I'm surprised you two made it back from the Kindergarten without driving each other crazy." She looks over at Amethyst. I can't help but look as well for the back that things didn't go as well as it looks.

"Yeah…" Amethyst grumbles, not bothering to look at her.

I shake my head at how bad things went real quick at the Kindergarten. Strange thing is, it's amazing to think just how the gems are supposed to be and how their position in the gem hierarchy's supposed to be. From what Peridot was implying, fusing is only supposed to be for fighting, Pearl isn't supposed to be independent as she is, and Amethyst is supposed to be a very powerful hardened warrior that could possibly be on par with Jasper. "Jasper." I growl out the gems name in question. Remembering who she is, I can't help but feel both anger and sadness. Anger at the orange gem and how much I really want to tear her apart, and sadness for Lapis who is still no doubt holding her under the sea. _'Just a little bit longer Lapis. Just hang on a little bit longer'_

*Fwooosh*

The fire in my furnace spews forth, indicating it's ready to get to work. I stand up and watch as the jets of flame and fire dance in front of me.

I clench my fists. _'As soon as we deal with the Cluster, I'm coming for you Jasper.'_

* * *

Several hours later, things progress as normal as they can. Garnet and Pearl left to go chase off more cows who for some reason just love to come by and bother them, Marcus is working on his forge and melting down some of the tungsten rounds, Amethyst is going around to make sure none of the cows got through, and Peridot is working on the drill with Steven holding her leash.

"This little thing…" Peridot grumbles as she continues to fiddle around with the panel she has attached to the inside of the drills top. After pressing a few more buttons, she notices Amethyst walking by but she doesn't acknowledge the green gem. Peridot grunts louder in frustration before going back to working. "Dyaagh!"

"How's everything going up there?" Steven asks her from the ground, still holding her leash.

"Fine! There's nothing wrong, everything's fine." She grumbles but in her angry states, she accidentally pushes a button by mistake. "Ah! No, no, no, no, no, stop!" She worriedly says, trying to fix it but fails to.

"Peridot?" Steven asks because of her worried state.

"Ah!" She grunts as the machine suddenly jerks, making her fall off and cough. "The panel." She tells Steven.

With a nod, Steven jumps onto the drill but after he does does it start spinning at an insane pace.

"Wait!" Peridot tries to go to help the kid but the leash on her vest catches onto a piece of debris on the ground.

"It's okay, I got it!" Steven manages to say through the spinning drill but he's still being thrown around by the speed

"What's going on?" Marcus asks as he comes out of the barn after hearing the heavy use of machinery. His eyes widen as he stares at the activated drill. "What the—?"

"Help him!" He looks over at Peridot as she points to the drill. "The panel!"

He looks at the machine and notices a blur of black and red on top. "Steven!" He moves forward and gets ready to jump on top of the machine but it's speed makes him hesitate. "C'mon c'mon." He tries to come up with the right time to jump. Unfortunately the spinning drill bit tearing apart the ground clangs of a buried rock and angles itself toward Marcus. He has no time to get out of the way as one of the pieces of metal jutting out of the side of the top of the drill slams into him. "Aaaarhh!" He yells in pain as he's sent flying through the hole in the top of the barn.

Amethyst meanwhile picks the wrong time to come back as she steps out from behind the barn. "What the—?" She ask in confusion at the noise but seeing the drill coming straight towards her makes her pause.

"Amethyst!" Peridot cries out the purple gems name in worry at seeing her about to be torn apart by the rampaging drill. She struggles a bit at having her leash caught but pushes nonetheless in trying to get to the only gem she finds decent of them all. Pushing and pulling as hard as she can, the leash snaps, allowing Peridot to dash forward.

Amethyst stands frozen as the drill comes straight towards her, at least until she's pushed out of the way by Peridot. Steven meanwhile manages to right himself up on top of the spiraling death machine and grasps the panel attached to it. With quick effort he tears the device off where its housed, exposing wires and disabling the out of control drill. With a slow whir, it comes to a halt before tipping onto it's side with a loud thud. "It's okay, everything's okay!" Steven announces as he climbs on top of the drill, dizziness clearly evident from his loopy voice and eyes. "It was just a drill!" He laughs a little before collapsing against the side of the drill.

The others don't notice him as Peridot and Amethyst are in an awkward situation however, what with Peridot sitting on top of a very surprised Amethyst at what just happened. "Uhhh… Peridot?" She asks.

"Ah!" Peridot quickly jumps off her. "It was an accident, I swear!" She quickly states.

"Hey, don't worry about it." Steven, after coming down from his dizzy spell, manages to walk up to them as he says. "We know you didn't mean to start the drill."

"Uh… yeah. That was an accident, too…" Peridot hesitantly says, not what she was implying in the first place. Amethyst looks at the green gem with a mix of confusion and shock. Peridot said some mean things back at the Kindergarten, whether she meant to or not, but her courageous act has put the purple gem off what she originally thought.

*Crrrr… Snap*

"Ahhh- Uh!" All three of them look back at the barn to see Marcus hanging upside down just inside the barn in front of the main door. Very slowly he spins around with a hook caught on his ankle before he faces the others. "Would someone explain to me what just happened?" He calmly asks them but deep down inside he has just a bit of anger flowing through him after getting nailed pretty hard by the machine.

* * *

"We leave for one second and everything goes off the rails!" Pearl cries out loudly in horror, hands pressed to either side of her head at the scene in front of her and Garnet. She looks as she sees the broken down drill and the torn apart ground and dirt in front of them all.

"I blame the cows." Garnet states.

"I blame you two." The two of them look back to see me still hanging and slowly rotating inside the barn. "You left us alone and now look what happened." I tell them after I complete another rotation when I see them. "Now can either of you two help me already. My heads starting to hurt from the blood rushing to my head."

*Thud*

"Wa! Pah!... Thank you." I groan out after hitting the ground.

"Your welcome." Garnet says with a smile after simply lightly punching the barn door. Her action freed me from my hanging and let me unceremoniously fall to the ground in a heap.

"No, it's fine, it's fine. We'll rebuild it. Stronger, better. We'll add seat belts!" Pearl happily states, already visualizing the new possibilities for the drill.

"Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure." I groan as I stand up and stretch my back. Pops can be heard from the stretching of my spine. "I'm gonna go walk around a bit." I tell them as I carefully make my way around the area. The sudden head rush has left me somewhat disoriented like Steven after he took a ride on the spinning drill so now while my balance is offset pretty badly, I somewhat stumble to Amethyst and Steven as she pulls a unicycle out of the ground. "You two alright? I got thrown pretty hard before I could see what happened."

"We're fine."

"Yeah, we're good, especially you Amethyst." Steven says as he looks at her. "It's a good thing Peridot was there to save you."

"Hm?" I question.

"She was about to get messed up by the drill when Peridot pushed her out of the way at the last second. Good thing." He explains with a smile.

' _Huh, so Peridot did save her. She could have let her get hit and ran off since we were all gone or incapacitated. Speaking of…'_ I think as I see Peridot walking over to us.

"Yes, it is a good thing." She agrees with Steven. Before she says anything else, she pauses and stares at Amethyst for a bit. "Listen, I... uhm..." She hesitates to say what she wants to say.

"Just spit it out." Amethyst states in an annoyed tone.

Peridot looks shocked at her before getting angry and grunting. "Ughh!" She facepalms. "Why are you earthlings so difficult!?"

*Click*

She slaps her hand on top of her tape recorder, activating the playback before aiming it towards us. "Log date 7112." Peridot can be heard in the recorder. "This entire planet is backwards. There hasn't been one instance of correct behavior exhibited by any one of these 'Crystal Gems'. I have concluded that they are all defective." Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Amethyst is getting annoyed at what's being said on the recorder. "But I am no better." That gives the both of us pause. "I failed my mission and now I'm working with the enemy. And I can't even get that right. I have apparently 'hurt' Amethyst's 'feelings', which was not my intent. If I've damaged my standing with the best Gem here, then I've made a serious mistake. I'm still learning. I hope you understand. I want to understand. I'm sorry… Peridot. Facet 5. End log."

*Click*

As stated, the playback ends. "As you can see—"

"Oh, Peridot." Steven says emotionally. I have to admit, I can't help but smile at her action too. It seems she's not as great at conveying her emotions directly with people. Really smart, and kind of awesome how she uses her records as a way to convey what she means. _'Nice.'_ However she doesn't share as much optimism with Steven as she looks away and makes an odd noise angrily.

"Hey uhh, Peridot…" She looks at Amethyst. "…Thanks." She says with a smile, making Peridot smile awkwardly in return. "But you're still a nerd." And then she kind of tanks the emotional moment before walking off.

"Oh Amethyst." I mumble with a head shake.

"I'll be sure to add that to my notes." Peridot says annoyed. Regardless she looks relieved at Amethyst actually talking to her.

"How do you feel?" My brother asks her from behind.

For a moment, Peridot doesn't say anything as she looks down to the ground. She looks up, "… Big."

I don't know what that means but the look on Steven's face says he does. Seeing as how their good, I remember something that Peridot said that may put Amethyst in a slightly better mood. "I'm gonna go make sure she's good."

"Okay. C'mon Peridot. Let's clean up this mess some more." Steven says and walks away.

"Very well." She agrees in her usual high and mighty attitude and follows him.

Once they go, I jog over to the purple gem. "Hey, Amethyst." I call her name.

"Hm? Oh, hey Marcus. You need something?"

"Nah, I'm good. I just wanted to uhh, mention something I remember back at the Kindergarten."

"Oh." She looks down at the reminder of what happened at that place. "You sure you wanna bring that back up?" She asks as she walks away.

"Actually, here's the thing." I say as I walk along with her. "Peridot said that you are defective. You're supposed to be twice as tall as you are now and be more intimidating."

"Is there a point to this?!" She angrily states, stopping and reeling on me as she gives me a death stare with arms crossed.

"Well, you remember what she said after you took off the drill with one swipe of your whip?" I ask with a smirk.

Her angry stares turns to confused and then embarrassed. "Uhhhh…" She says awkwardly seeing as how she was too angry at the time to process what she said.

"She said, and I quote, _"See, look at that. You can do everything a normal quartz can do."_ Meaning, that despite you being apparently defective, you can be just as effective as a normal, twice-as-tall, intimidating quartz soldier." I explain with a smile.

A look of awe and realization graces her face as she now remembers the apparent compliment that Peridot gave her. "Huh… wow."

"A flaw makes you unique Amethyst. It may be a flaw but it's what makes you different from all the other quartz soldiers that came out of the Kindergarten. If you hadn't been delayed by those 500 years in coming out, then what are the chances you'd still be a Crystal Gem and not another soldier for the Diamonds?" I ask her. She looks down for a second as she contemplates what I said to her. I crouch down and lay a hand on her shoulder, making her look me in the eye. "Peridot may have come off as a jerk, but she did raise some good points." I stand back up with a smile. "You're not wrong in our eyes Amethyst. Never." I start to walk away so I can get back to work but I look back to her. "Oh and uhh, to be honest… I don't think looking like Jasper suits you."

After my piece is said and done, I head back to my workshop to get to work on what we need. I can't help but have a smile on my face at the fact that things are now settled down and things are better between everyone. I scoop up the torn panel and start examining it for ways to incorporate it into the new drill design.

* * *

 **Not as much seems to have happened in my opinion on Marcus here but I still like how it turns out, especially the beginning. I was just waiting for the moment when he and Peridot get into a technology fight argument and I keep grinning everytime I picture the scene happening as if it were in the show itself.**

 **Which reminds me, a little something for you all: My very first Omake of the beginning scene.**

* * *

 _Omake: Heated Differences_

"I know what I'm doing! Stop second guessing me!" Marcus yells at Peridot.

"And I was literally built to be an engineer! I know how to do this stuff like the hack of my limb enh—!" Peridot stops as she remembers she doesn't have her enhancers anymore.

"Awwww! How sad! Did little Peri forget she's as normal as the rest of us!"

"Oh what do you know about normal?! You overgrown psychotic monster!"

"NARCISISTIC IMP!" Marcus's head cartoonishly grows to five times it's normal size as he yells down at her.

"STUPID HUMAN CLOD!" Peridot does the same as they but heads and yell with each other.

"STUPID GNAT!"

"HYBRID ABOMINATION!"

The rest of the Crystal Gems watch from against the barn. Their heads swivel back and forth as Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst and Steven watch the two argue. Eventually the two of them growl at each other as a red lightning bolt of anger forms between the two as they death stare at one another.

"I think I remember something like this happening to some Japanese shows I watch." Steven mentions as he takes a handful of popcorn from Amethyst.

"Sounds about right." The purple gem says and takes a sip of her soda.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Pearl asks worriedly from next to Garnet and Steven. "Their getting a bit… much."

"I'm sure things will be fi—"

*Fwshing*

*Bang*

"You're gonna have to do better than that!"

"Ha! Back at you!"

Pearl is cowering behind Steven and Amethyst as they both stare at the fusion in surprised horror. A sword sticks out of the barn door to the right of her head, and a smoking bullet hole on the left. "… Okay. I'll stop them." She pushes herself off the barn and walks over to the fighting pair.

"Yes, please do." Pearl mutters as she comes out from behind them.

Garnet walks up to Marcus and Peridot as the two of them continue to yell and threaten each other. Marcus is waving around his other sword while Peridot has the Anaconda revolver in her hands. "Okay. Listen you two—!"

"WHAAAAAT!?" The two of them scream very very loudly as their heads grow to be even larger than the barn. Fire brims in their eyes along with the razor sharp gritted teeth they both sport as they stare at the fusion in anger for interrupting them.

Garnet meanwhile literally shrinks down under their gaze. The sheer anger and ferocity they exhibit being the scariest thing she has ever seen as she lays on the ground and shakes. "… Uh… um… I… nevermind." She hesitates in saying before bailing.

The two's massive fiery gaze continues for a few seconds until they suddenly return to normal and look at each other. "You little—"

"I'm going to—"

And their arguments continue against one another. Garnet still shrunken crawls back on her hands and knees to the others.

All four of them are now in their cute, small chibi personas, huddling, shaking together in fear at what they just saw. Amethyst is on Steven's left with Pearl on his right and Garnet now hugging Pearl and Steven from behind.

"I'm so scared." Pearl breaths out scared.

"We all are Pearl." Garnet agrees with her and the other two nod. "We all are."

* * *

 **I can't stop smiling and chuckling people. Please tell me you all are in the same boat as me. Seeing as how my stories tend to keep things somewhat serious or as realistic as I can try to make them, this scene wouldn't make as much sense in having it canon to my story. So instead I decided to give you all two fold. Omake's are a Japanese anime type thing but you know what, it translates basically to extras so screw it I couldn't resist. On occasion if I find a scene or come up with something like this, or you all come up with something, that seems funny as hell but doesn't fit with the tone but really want to see it put into words, then expect some more of these in the future. Not in every chapter but maybe at some points.  
**

 **With this chapter done, I'd also like to address something I temporarily decided. A problem I had when I first got onto this site was the fact that when searching for stories the default rating search system was only K to T and not included M. So when I found out I had to change the rating search to 'All' all the time, I got a little annoyed and felt stupid that that was going on for months to almost a year.**

 **Don't know if anyone else is dealing with the same problem so for now till the next chapter, this story will be temporarily rated T so you all can see this and realize this story is now officially M rated once I change it back. It's a little something so no one accidentally misses any new updates just because you or I forget to change the rating system on the search engine.**

 **Remember, I'm going to be working on my other stories again so don't expect as quick an update as usual for 'A Tale of A Jade.'**

 **Anyway, everything's alright, planning to go out of town for 4** **th** **of July but will be taking my laptop so I can continue working on my stuff regardless, and hope everything's well with everyone.**

 **As always everyone, have a great day, and have fun reading.**


	55. 53 Steven's Birthday

Progress on the drill is coming along swimmingly. With no more drama cropping up, we spent a few more days working on it and making sure everything is going according to plan. However as those days passed, something else popped up that completely took me by surprise.

Steven's birthday.

When I saw the gems starting to place birthday decorations around the barn, I asked them about it and they told me it's none other than Steven's birthday soon. The blank expression I gave them meant that I was completely caught off guard by that bit of news. I feel so bad that I didn't even know his birthday and I didn't have a freaking present for him!

"C'mon Marcus. It's not that big a deal."

"Not that big a deal?" I slam the bundle of ribbons on the table and look deathly serious at my brother. "NOT that big a DEAL?! I forgot your birthday Steven! I forgot your birthday and I don't even have a present to give you! Graaaaa I can't believe I didn't get you a present for your first birthday with you." I grumble as I stare down at the table angrily.

"Second actually."

"… What?" After a second to process what she said, I look at Pearl as she continues to make a giant red ribbon flower bow.

"If I remember correctly, and I am, you met when Steven was 12 years old. This is his 14th birthday so technically this is the second birthday party with him." Pearl calmly explains while still tying.

Nothing comes out of my mouth as I stare at her trying to remember exactly when the hell I missed my brother's first birthday party with him.

"I think it was when you first got kidnapped by the Iron Kings did you miss his first birthday." Pearl adds nonchalantly.

"… Ahhhhhhhhhhh." I groan as I let my head fall onto the table and my legs slowly give out, leaving my upper body to lay on the table. I feel Garnet gently pat my head in some hope of comfort at my depressed state.

It helps a little.

"Don't worry Marcus. You're here now aren't you?" Steven asks me.

I don't reply instantly as I let his words sink in. "Yeaaaaaahh… I guess you're right." I begrudgingly say through a muffled voice. I finally get back onto my feet and pick up the bundle of ribbons again. _'Still disappointed I missed the first one but the very least I can be here for this one.'_

"I can't believe it's finally my birthday. You're sure it's okay we're taking a break from the drill?" Steven asks as he holds the rest of the ribbon silk that Pearl is using to make her giant ribbon flower bow.

"Peridot will keep us on schedule." Pearl reassures him. Speaking of Peridot, she steps out of the barn and is about to walk around the building to the drill pieces we moved away so she wouldn't be disturbed by the festivities.

"Yo, Peri! You sure you don't want to get in on this?" Amethyst asks her before she blows up a balloon that looks like Peridot for some reason until it pops. She smiles at her.

Peridot gives her an unamused look before she flaps down her welding goggles and walks to the drill. "I don't think she wants to get in on this." I comment.

"We should celebrate our progress." Garnet says. "We should celebrate your progress. You've grown a lot this year." Garnet tells Steven specifically as she pats his head.

"He certainly has." Pearl agrees with the fusion.

"Mh-hm." I nod as well. They've known him since he was born and have seen him progress the most. I'm mostly comparing to when I met him to now, which is definitely an improvement considering all that we've had to do these past couple years.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so!" Steven happily states.

Before anyone else can say anything, a familiar car horn honking gets our attention. Coming over a hill is Greg's van. _'Ah Greg. Good to see him here. Definitely should be for his son's birthday after all.'_ After I came back and we made some progress on the drill, I went ahead and met up with Greg to tell him that I'm back and alright. Although he was a little cross at me having to be very cautious at the idea of people stalking him. Apparently the gems had him sleep closer to the temple just in case if the Iron Kings did anything else to them after they found the pictures. I reassured him though that I took care of them and they shouldn't be messing with us again anytime soon. He still gave me that cross look but was still relieved none the less that I was back.

Once Greg parks his van a little ways away, he shuts off the engine and someone other than Greg gets out: Connie. "Steven!"

"Connie!" They two of them run at each other, excited to see each other on his special day. I follow my brother at a slower pace.

"Happy birthday!" Connie happily says as she gives Steven a hug.

"Thanks. Welcome to the party! May I offer you... a refreshment?" Steven asks her as he pulls out two juice boxes from behind for the both of them.

"Oh, Steven. How genteel." She replies before the both of them tape their juice boxes against each other.

"Clink!" They both say at the same time, acting all sophisticated.

"Ohhhhh! Clinking glasses I see. Should have worn my good jacket." I comment in a posh accent when I finally reach them, grabbing my jacket and straightening it.

"Marcus!" Connie calls out my name happily as she moves towards me.

"Hey Connie!"I reciprocate the action and the two of us hug. "Ohhh it's so good to see you again." I tell her with a smile.

"You too!" She replies and I put her down. "Last I saw you was awhile ago. When I asked Garnet said you had been kidnapped?" She says it like a question and a raised eyebrow.

I give her a nervous chuckle as I rub the back of my head. _'Of course she'd be the blunt one to tell her outright.'_ "He he, yeeaaaaah some stuff happened, some people were angry and they took me. Took me awhile to break out but I'm glad to be back."

"I'm sure the others were too." I nod at her words. She glances at the barn. "This where we're having your party?" She asks Steven.

"Yep! This is the barn! I'm surprised your parents are letting you stay for the weekend." Steven tells her.

"Haha. It wasn't easy. They'd only let me come after equipping me with every piece of safety gear on the planet."

"What should I do with this defibrillator!?" Greg calls out to Connie from his van while holding said device.

"Um, we can just leave it in the car for now!" She tells him.

"They gave you a defibrillator?!" I ask her in utter surprise. She simply nods like it's a norm for her. I can't help but rub my head at their complete overprotection for her. _'I have missed a lot.'_

Steven giggles. "Well, I'm glad you could make it."

"Me too."

"Same here." I can't help but add.

"Alright, move it Connie, I was his best friend first." Greg buts in before he goes up to Steven. "Happy birthday!" He hugs Steven. "Ooookay, shtoo-ball. Let me get a look at you." He states after he puts his son down and looks at him.

"Daaad!" Steven moans embarrassed.

"Sorry, I just can't believe my little boy is growing up so quickly. Seems like just yesterday you were a baby, and now you're turning 14 years old." He reminisces, much to Connie's surprise as she spit takes the juice she was drinking.

"Steven! You're 14?!" She asks him very surprised.

"Yeeeaaaahhh?" He says but I don't think he meant it to come out confused and in a question.

"But I'm only 12 and three quarters." She says in disbelief as she covers her ear. "You're older than me? I- I don't believe it!" She states in utter surprise and disbelief. All of a sudden she grabs me. "Quick, Marcus! How old are you?" She asks.

I look down at her for a second before glancing at the other two, who are also sporting some confused looks as well, like me. "Uhhh, well if I remember correctly I was 18 when I first met this guy…" I say as I tap Steven's forehead.

"Hey!" He complains at the bop.

"He was 12 at the time… he's 14 now… so I'm 20 then." I answer. It takes me a second to realize just how old I am. "Huh, one more year and I'm technically an adult. Interesting." I comment. Although to be honest I haven't really been caught up in something like that. I have been on my own for several years now as it is so technically I've had to do some adult-esque things when I was way younger than I was now. Albeit less… legal… technically illegal adult things and situations, like stealing, illegal hacking… and vigilante killing. It's something to note okay!

"Well sure, check it out." Greg calls out as he pulls out a book with a star on the front under the name 'Steven Quartz Universe'. _'Oh baby book. Cool.'_ I comment in my head as all four of us look at Steven's baby pictures. "Let's see, we have infant, baby, toddler… what's it called?" He asks at a picture that looks very similar to what Steven looks now.

"Adolescent."

"Thanks Marcus." He thanks and continues with the other pictures. "Adolescent, adolescent, adolescent…" Which the rest don't seem as different as what Steven looks now. "Whoa, looks like you stagnated there a little bit, buddy." Greg comments to his son.

"Mr. Universe, could I show you how the defibrillator works?" Connie asks him all of a sudden.

"Oh, uh, sure. Be right back, kiddo." He tells his son and walks away with Connie. Steven and I look at each other before glancing at his pictures again.

"Marcus could you help us out with something?" Pearl asks of me.

"Coming!" I reply and begin walking over to them but not before giving Steven a reassuring pat on his back.

* * *

Back at the Universe van, Connie and Greg get to talking.

"So he's not going to grow up?" Connie asks Steven's dad.

"Well, it's hard to say. He's a Gem, and Gems don't really grow up. I mean, I've known the Gems since I was 22, and they never change." He explains to her the best he can. "They just are what they are. But Steven's not like the other Gems, he's half-human. So, I'm not really sure how he's gonna age. We're just gonna have to wait and see." He says a little depressed at the idea. He purses his lips though as he looks at Marcus helping the gems put up some decorations. "Then again, Marcus is just like Steven and look at him. You don't see him being Steven's size at… how old is he?" He asks her.

"20. Apparently he was 18 when you all first met him when Steven was 12, so since this is his 14th birthday…"

"Right, gotcha." He says, getting exactly what she means. "Like I said, for now we'll just have to wait and see."

"Yes, right."

"Are you okay?" Greg asks the little girl in concern at her downtrodden expression.

"Yeah, yeah." She reassures him.

"Human beings?" Greg holds his hand up in a high-five as a means to comfort her.

She smiles, "Human beings." She agrees and high-fives him.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the two of them Steven heard every word from the side of the van he was pressed up against. Hearing this bit of information starts to put thoughts into his head as to how to get himself out of this stagnated state he's in. He walks away without them or anyone else noticing.

* * *

"Perfect." Pearl says as she finishes up the bow she was making.

"Nice Pearl." I comment on her intricate work.

"Thank you."

"Now what else do we need to do?" I ask her on what's next.

"Well, the decorations are up, the cakes here, the allotted number of birthday candles indicating his age are on the cake, his presents are accounted for—"

"Ooh." I groan.

"Oh hush now. He's not going to hate you just because you didn't get him a present."

"I know… but I hate me." I go back to being depressed with my head laying on the table.

"As I was saying!" She interrupts my sulking mood. "Now all that's left is to have Steven get in his birthday suit."

"His birthday what?!" I ask loudly in surprise as I look at her.

"His birthday suit." She says again like it's no big deal. "Greg, do you have it?" She leans back in her seat as she stares past me.

"Got it right here." Turning away from Pearl, Greg places what looks like a large red cape and royal crown on the table.

I stare at is for a few seconds before looking back and forth at the two of them. "Soooooo, this is the birthday suit you were talking about?" They both nod. "Phew!" I let out a breath of air of relief. "I thought you were talking about something else. That would have been so weird and awkward."

"You wanna talk about what's weird?" Garnet asks as she comes up to us. "Is your obsession with hiding guns everywhere?" They all look at me now from her words.

"What? I have a fondness for them. And is it so bad to be have some around just in case things get dicey?" I ask her. True I haven't necessarily had to use any of my hidden weapons to take out anyone trying to fight me, but it's a necessary precaution.

Garnet doesn't believe however as she simply stares at me with the same neutral stare she's known for, before she reaches under the table and rips the 1911 I had stashed under it with tape. Pearl doesn't look surprised but Greg stares at the firearm with surprise before looking under the table and back at the piece. Their stares towards me now leave me in an awkward position.

I scratch the back of my head. "… I have a problem don't I?" They nod. "Okay." I agree as I take the pistol from her and put it in my belt.

"C'mon, let's go get Steven ready for his big day." Pearl says as she picks up his suit and goes over to him, followed by Garnet. I get up and I move to follow but the stare and crossed arms look that Greg gives me makes me stop.

"Uhhh…"

"Anymore surprises?" He asks.

I look at him for a bit before shaking my head. "No. Don't worry." I give him my best smile on the matter.

He stares at me for a bit in hopes of finding some tell that means I'm lying to him. Once he's satisfied, he turns around and goes with the others to Steven who's with Amethyst.

Once he's far enough away, I quietly but quickly reach under the seat and take the second 1911 I have stashed. Once I pull it out, I stare at the weapon before sighing. _'I really do have a problem.'_ I think as I put it away next to its partner on me and walk with the others.

* * *

"Is everyone ready?" Greg asks the others once they've all got what they need to surprise Steven. With nods from everyone, including Garnet who holds the giant cookie cake and Marcus drinking some juice, he smiles and knocks on the barn doors that is housing the birthday boy of the day. "Okay Steven, open up!" He signals.

At a slow rate, the barn doors open. "Surprise!" Everyone yells to Steven as they see the kid through the slowly opening doors. The surprise for Steven quickly turns to surprise and gasps for everyone else as they see just what happened.

"Wow." Garnet says.

"Oh my." So does Pearl.

"Huh?" Greg is confused at the new development for his son.

"Pffff!" Marcus spit takes his juice at seeing the kid, who right now no longer looks like a kid.

Steven smiles at everyone, pleased by their reactions to his new taller form. With new confidence, he walks out of the barn and closer to them all.

"Steven… are you feeling okay?" Pearl asks as everyone converges on him.

"Heh, you look good Steven." Garnet compliments Steven.

"Oh, eh hehehehe, thanks, Garnet." He thanks her in a slightly deeper voice.

"Whaaaaaa…?" Marcus draws out the word in confusion at seeing Steven like this, especially the voice.

"Dude, your neck!" Amethyst shouts.

"Oh, uh, what about it?" Steven asks confused.

"You have one!"

*Slap*

Marcus slaps the back of her head but continues to gape at the kid.

"So, you just grew... all of a sudden?" Connie asks curiously.

"I had a magical growth spurt, just now. Cool, right?" He explains simply and asks.

"Growth spurt?" Marcus mouths the words under his breath in confusion.

"Oh, right! It's totally cool!" Connie is happy nonetheless by the development.

"Alright then, let's get this party started." Garnet is no less perturbed about the situation and opts to blow out the candles in Steven's stead.

"Yeah, let's eat this cookie cake!" Greg is excited though to still eat the cake. While everyone goes over to the table to get ready to pass out the slices of cake, Steven and Connie go over to where she has her present for Steven, Marcus stares at the back of his brothers head with narrowed eyes.

"Hmmmm." He purses his lips in a questioning manner as he gets the feeling something is off about Steven. _'I'll keep an eye on him, just to be sure.'_

* * *

After eating some of that cookie cake, it was awesome, Steven got his present for Connie, which the unbuttoned pink shirt suited him quite well, and they played some badminton, we are now inside the barn chilling out and having a small dance party to relax. While Steven, Connie, Pearl, and Amethyst are dancing Greg and Garnet are going through his music collection and I'm just sitting by and watching the events unfold. Psychologically speaking, when you watch people or hear music playing, your muscles twitch and flex as if your actually dancing, giving you the feeling and enjoyment as if you were actually dancing… except without the possibility of you possibly screwing up a move and possibly getting embarrassed.

While I bob my head to the beat of the music, I smile at everyone having the time of their lives. _'Even when we're dealing with a monster that could destroy the planet, it's nice that we can at least take the time to relax.'_ I think and my eyes stop on Steven dancing next to Connie. Weird thing though, he looks like he's sweating and straining with something. I keep my eyes on him to make sure everything's alright with him while he continues to have fun with Connie.

"This one goes out to the birthday boy, and his best friend." Garnet calls out to everyone before putting on another track of music. The two of them notice the music and giggle softly at it before they both begin dancing together. While I am still curious what's wrong with him, I can't help but smile at the closeness the two of them seem to show for each other.

"I still can't believe all this time you were older than me. You should sneak me into a PG-13 movie sometime." Connie proposes to him.

"Oh yeah…" Steven says and he looks like he's sweating even more.

She laughs at his embarrassed tone. "No, I'm just kidding, I would never ask you to break the law. If anything I'd ask Marcus to do it since he's so good at it."

"Thank you!" I call out and walk over to where Garnet and Pearl are.

"It's funny that I have to look up at you now though."

"Funny good or funny bad?" He fidgets at his own question.

"Funny good." She tells him before leaning on his chest.

"Aw... Steven's having fun." Pearl coos as she, Garnet and I watch from a distance, watching the two of them so close together.

"We know how to throw a party." Garnet compliments on their work.

"He he, yeah you do." I agree before turning my attention back to Steven, who suddenly decides to exit the barn for some reason in a sweaty haste. "Hmmmm." I moan curiously at his bizarre behavior.

"What's eating you?" Garnet asks me. I look back at the two of them before catching Steven just leaving the barn.

"It's… Steven."

"What about him?" Pearl asks.

"I don't know what it is but he looks different- And it's not the sudden growth." I quickly interrupt them before they point out that fact. "He just seems like he's really… straining with something but I don't know what?" I try to explain the worriness I have for my brother. "I'm just worried about him."

"He doesn't seem all that strained or worried in general." Pearl points out. "I'm sure it's just because of his birthday and all, coupled with the sudden growth spurt who knows what he's feeling. I'm sure you went through it when you had your growth spurt."

I look at her confused as to what she implies to me. "But… I didn't have one."

They both look at each other before looking back at me. "You didn't have growth spurt at his age?" Garnet asks.

"No…" I'm pretty sure of my answer but as I recall, most of my childhood wasn't exactly a pleasant one. "At least, I don't think so." I place my hand on the side of my head in hopes of trying to remember what happened when I was his age. "I can't really remember. As you know, my childhood wasn't exactly a pleasant one to be had. If I did have a growth spurt, I honestly don't remember."

"Hm, that's a shame. It would have been nice to have at least some form of information on you and Steven." Pearl says slightly depressed.

I nod along with her and notice everyone else already heading outside. "You and me both." I motion for us to go outside with the others for a more relaxed part of Steven's birthday. As we exit out of the barn, we notice Steven and Connie lying on a blanket looking at the stars and Greg and Amethyst are at the table looking especially worried about something. We head for them. "Hey you two. What's up?" I ask as we sit with them.

"Steven's been stretching himself out to make himself seem taller and more grown up."

"…" Pearl, Garnet and I look at eachother at the father's quick but blunt explanation. _'Ooooookay… wasn't expecting that right off the bat.'_ "I'm sorry, what now?" I ask for clarification.

"Steven's been using his shape shifting powers to stretch his body into what he looks like now. We caught him when he returned to normal but for some reason he's really stuck on this." Amethyst explains.

"He's been shape shifting?!" Pearl explains frantically but quickly quiets herself before she attracts the kid in questions attention. "But… don't you all remember what happened the last time he tried shape shifting?" She asks in a much quieter tone.

"Yeah, the cats."

I shiver a little at Greg reminding me of that incident. "Don't remind me." I groan as I remember having been thrown through the window, left to dangle precariously off the balcony, and having to tackle a giant biting cat monster into the car wash that was spraying to ever living crap out of me. "Is that why he looks like he's been straining and sweating a lot?" I ask and they nod.

"All day he's been keeping that form and we found out when he took a break." Amethyst mentions how they found out. "I like shape shifting as much as the next gem, but there's no way I can keep up a new form this long without it hurting!"

"It's true." Garnet speaks. "From all the times I remember Amethyst or any of us shape shifting for any reason, it was always in the moment or the very least no more than a few hours at most." She looks up at the slowly darkening sky. "It's been nearly an entire day."

"Plus you guys are gems!" Greg exclaims. "That's something you guys were born or made to be able to do. Not humans. And he and Marcus are only half of each." He gestures to me. "What do we do to make sure he doesn't hurt himself?" He asks everyone. We all think on just what can be done. He's right on a lot things. The gems bodies are made of a sort of hardened light construct to give them their humanistic forms and from what Pearls told me can be changed to suit their environment and planets atmosphere. Humans aren't like that and can't change at will. Shape shifting shouldn't be as harmful to the gems bodies since they were literally designed to do that but the human part is another story.

"Wait, wasn't their another time he shape shifted and we were freaking out?" Amethyst asks. We think again on any other times Steven shape shifted but the cat was the most prominent one I can remember.

' _The only other time I can remember was—'_ My eyes widen as remember the other moment. "Oh no. Guys, remember when Steven found out about your ages and he—"

"Uhhh, guys?!" We look away towards the voice to see Connie walking over to us carrying something that is crying. She holds it out and to our surprises, we all get up out of our seats as we see a baby Steven crying. "We were just talking then all of a sudden—"

"He turned back into a baby?!" Pearl asks loudly in disbelief.

"YES!" Connie confirms.

"A baby?!" I too ask loudly in disbelief. I wasn't there to see Steven turn into an old man but seeing him a baby now is a bit freaky. "What the F—"

*Smack*

A large red hand covers my mouth before I finish my statement. My glance over to Garnet who was smart enough to take the initiative and everyone else is staring at me. "Thnmk yuu." I say in muffled voice. She nods and lets me go. "But seriously, whaaaaaaaat?" I draw out the word in confusion as I gesture with both hands to newly formed infant in front of us.

"Dude, I told you…" Amethyst takes Steven from Connie and hold him up. "Stretching your body out for that long is not good for you."

"Aba uhh oh." Steven mutters in baby talk.

"Here you go, Pearl."

"Oh, no, no, don't give him to me!" Amethyst tries to hand off baby Steven to her but she refuses almost instantly.

"Hand him over, Amethyst." Garnet instead opts to take the kid off her hands. She also removes her shades for some reason.

"Here you go." Amethyst gives Steven to her.

With Steven in her arms, the two of them stare at each other until Garnet blinks all her eyes one by one and sticks out her tongue. It doesn't have the desired effect on Steven though as he starts crying again.

"My power means nothing to an infant." She concedes and gives the infant to Greg.

"Three eyes is never normal to humans Garnet." I can't help but mention.

"Okay, this is my department."

"What are you going to do?" Connie asks the father of our group.

"Don't worry, I got this." He replies with a smile as he holds onto Steven.

* * *

"How can the Gems not know what to do?" Connie asks Greg while waving the maraca in front of Baby Steven. Greg's plan was to try to calm Steven down by driving him in his van and we opted to go with just in case. Connie sits in the front while I am sitting next to Steven in his car seat.

"You think they know the first thing about raising a baby? That was all me, but I don't get it, driving always used to calm him down." He explains. Steven continues to cry and its starting to make me really uncomfortable. _'I don't like it when baby's cry. I really don't'_ I think as I try rocking the car seat a little to calm him.

"But, how do we change him back?" She asks but none of us can give her an answer.

"We have no idea Connie. The first time we had to deal with something like this was when he tried to give the gems a birthday party." I explain somberly as I look at him. His crying subsides and he's sniffling now but it still hurts to see him cry regardless. "He solved that problem himself." I look down. I wasn't there to really help with what happened and all I could do was stare out the window and watch everything unfold at some points. Now though, I still feel useless.

"Yeah… I don't know… look Connie, let me take you home, I-I'll call you when this all this gets sorted out." Greg proposes we do instead.

"Whaaa uhhh." Steven baby talks in what I can assume is confusion at his dads proposition.

"W-Wait no, I wanna stay." She rejects the idea almost instantly.

"Are you sure?" Greg asks her.

"This… will probably get confusing and complicated Connie." I pitch in as well. If she wants to stay, she's gotta be sure that this may possibly end badly. _'Oh god. I hope this doesn't end badly. Please no.'_ I start to hyperventilate a little at the idea of something really bad happening to Steven.

"Yeah, I just want to be there for Steven." She answers sincerely and looks back at Steven. "Don't worry Steven, it doesn't matter to me what age it seems like you are, I wanna hang out with you no matter what. Your dad still has his carwash and the gems have to do gem stuff so I'll watch you when they're not around. I can come see you after I'm done training with Pearl too. Doesn't that sound fun?" I smile at her words as she tells Steven what could happen in the future. He smiles and coos happily as she holds onto Connie's finger.

"She's right Steven." I get off my seat and kneel on the floor so I can look more directly at Steven. "Listen, never forget that you're not alone in this. Your never alone to go through with whatever problems that may arise." I look down a moment, trying to come up with a proper response before I take in a deep breath and look at him. "Steven… I don't know how long our age life is. We could live forever like the gems, we could live as long as a human, or live only twice as long, but I know one thing for sure, without a doubt…" I take one of us little hands in my own. He stares at me with stars in his eyes as I give him my most sincerest smile yet. "You're my brother Steven. It doesn't matter to me that we aren't related by blood. Blood means nothing to me as its your actions that I care most about." I smirk at him. "And you Steven, have wormed your way into the deepest parts of my heart. I'll always help you, my brother, as long as you remain true to yourself." Already I can feel myself tearing up, but I continue regardless. "Me, Connie, your dad…" I look at the two of them to see Connie staring back at us and Greg staring at the rearview mirror, both smiling. "Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst, we all will be there for you Steven. Never forget that."

Baby Steven in front of me coos happily just like with Connie and takes my finger as well into his. My heart lifts at the action. I wipe my eyes with my free hand and continue to smile at him.

"Wow, nicely done Marcus." I hear Greg compliment me.

"Beautiful speech." Connie compliments me too. "He's right Steven." Connie adds for the little guy.

I blush at their words as I take a seat again. "Hehe, yeah. I try. Thanks."

"And look at that you two, he finally stopped crying." Greg points out to us and it's true. Now instead of crying, he has a smile on his face.

"Yeah, it's a start." Connie says. Now we just need to get him back to normal but for now, we take a moment to relax.

"Ahem."

For the moment. "What's up, Amethyst?" Greg asks the carseat. _'Oh yeah, I forgot she changed into that.'_

"Baby Steven needs changin'."

"Not it!" I immediately deny diaper change duty.

"Aw come on Marcus!" Greg complains. "Your right next to him." He points out.

"No I'm not." I retort.

"Marcus," Connie shakes her head. "Your literally…" She looks back to her surprise sees he's not in fact there but the back doors click closed. "Not there. Where did he—"

*Tap*Tap*

"Aaah!" Greg cries out in surprise at a hand tapping the windshield.

"Yo." I call out from my position on the roof of the van. The two humans look at the window in surprise before looking back at Amethyst and Steven.

"How did he do that?" Greg asks out loud. Amethyst, despite being a car seat, shrugs the arm rests like she would her shoulders. Even Steven in his baby state shrugs his shoulders like he doesn't know. All in all, it was a pretty calm ride back to the barn being on the roof.

* * *

By the time we got back it was already pretty late in the day and getting really dark. While the gems decided to get to work on removing all the decorations and cleaning up after Steven's party, us humans and semi-humans went to sleep. The stress of being worried about Steven all day didn't leave me with a preferred amount of time to get some sleep. I only got like less than half a dozen hours of sleep in the barn. Greg took his van and Steven and Connie took a tent. He was still a baby when we all went to sleep so I could only hope things would get better for him. The gems told me how close and dangerous he was to possibly dying of old age the first time he had problems with his age and now, who knows what'll happen? Will he turn back into a fetus or something?

"God damn." I groan from my place on the silo. After I woke prematurely than I preferred and couldn't get back to sleep, I decided to go ahead and get up and look around. The sun was just barely peeking over the hills so it gave the sky a beautiful orange bright glow to it and the smell of morning dew relaxed me a little. Not wanting to interrupt or wake anyone else, I went ahead and left for the silo away from everyone so I can get an alright view and lay of the land. Being so high up on top of the silo, there was a sense of calm that swept over me as I stared at the countryside around me and at the slowly rising sun. Since I've been back, I've had to constantly work and keep working on the drill and pretty much anything else we might need for when the situation called for it. Now that I have a moments rest that didn't involve me working on something, I calmly breathe in and out before taking out my Colt Anaconda. Holding the weapon in my hand, a new thought goes through my mind.

' _I can't keep feeling sorry or hopeless for myself anymore.'_ I think as I flip open the cylinder and close it again after seeing the empty chambers. _'I was alone for so long, felt like I was nothing… but now…'_ I look back to see everyone already up and starting to walk around. My new family. _'I'm not alone. I have people I care about. People who care about me!_ ' An image of a smiling Lapis flashes into my mind. _'People who need me! I can't ever do something like that ever again!_ ' With gritted teeth and a firm grip on the handle of my gun as I remember moments I had with this gun, I rear my arm back and prepare to chuck it as far as I can.

"Marcus?" A voice stops me. Looking to the right, I see Steven on the silo with Connie right behind me. What surprises me so much but also gives me such relief is the fact that Steven is back to normal, while also wearing the shirt Connie gave him.

"Steven!" I exclaim happily as I see him normal again. "You're back to normal!"

"Haha, yeah I am." He says as he walks over and sits next to me with Connie as well.

"What are you doing up here anyway?" She asks.

"And why did it look like you were going to throw your gun?" Steven asks too. Looking at the gun still in my hand, I look at it for a second before I sigh and put it away.

"Just… just tired, angry and confused about some stuff." I elect to say instead.

"Oh, okay." Steven is somewhat satisfied with the answer.

"Is that why you're up here? To think?" Connie asks as she momentarily looks down to the ground before quickly scooting back and gripping Steven's arm. I nod yes at her question.

"Do you want us to go?"

"No no. It's fine that you're here." I reject Steven's offer for them to go. "Seeing you back to normal lifted a weight off my shoulders."

"That's good." He replies before silence falls over us. No one says anything as we just decide to take in the view around us for a bit. "I'm sorry I made you all worry. I just wanted to be older than I already was."

"Ah don't worry about it. Your back to normal with no permanent damage. That's the important part."

"He's right Steven. Your alright now. Plus you got that neat facial hair." Connie points out.

"Huh?" I ask confusion. Looking at Steven, he points to a tiny strand of hair that just barely appearing on his face. "Oh wow. Nice man."

"Yeah, I think so too." He replies with a smile, no doubt proud and happy at the first sign in a long time that he's growing up. "Hey Marcus?"

"What's up?"

"What do you think makes us grow?" He asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for awhile I was just, stuck like this." He gestures to himself. "And here you are so much taller like an adult. Yeah you are older than me but… just what do you think makes you and me grow?" He asks.

"That's a good question." Connie joins in as well.

For awhile, I try to remember exactly what it was in the past that has warranted my growth over the years. When I was Steven's age, I wasn't his height but possibly taller. Then again, my whole life things weren't exactly in the best place for me at all. "Experience." I decide finally. "I think it's when we go through life and its challenges. As it stands, my life as I grew up wasn't exactly… the best, or supportive, not like yours Steven. You had plenty of people to take care of and nurture you but me? I had to take care of myself from an early age."

The two of them look at me as I give the vaguest description of my childhood. "Ohh." Steven looks down from my words.

"Now listen Steven." I turn to him fully and make sure he's looking at me. "That shouldn't matter to you and it doesn't matter to any of us. You've still got a lot of your life ahead of you and you will have plenty of chances to get some experience. But I also want to make one thing clear to you…" I place my hands on both sides of his face, making sure his attention is fully set on me and he ears what I am going to say. "I will never, let you deal with what I've experienced my whole life. I will NOT let you have even as close life as I had Steven. Okay?" I tell and ask him in the most firm and serious tone I can give him. If my experiences in the past have brought me to what I am today, then I will not let my brother deal with what I've dealt with at all. Not if I have anything to say about it.

He looks at me surprised at the seriousness of my tone with him but he gives me a firm nod. "Okay." With a smile, I let him go. Before I fully move away from him, he grabs my hand with his, "Brother."

My smile turns into a grin as I grab him in a hug. "Thank you." I say before putting him down.

"You're welcome." He replies and we look to his right to see Connie beginning to go down the ladder. She stares at us awkwardly as we caught her just climbing onto the ladder.

"I didn't want to interrupt."

"Connie get up here!" I demand with a smile and a wave and she does so. Sitting back down, we go back to staring at the sunrise for a bit again.

After a few minutes of staring, a groan interrupts our quiet moment. "I'm hungry." Steve says.

"Me too."

"I think there's some cake left."

"Cake for breakfast?" Connie asks me incredulously. I give her a shrug as we stares at each other before she shrugs too. "Sure why not."

"Great! I'll go get it." I say as I push myself off the top of the silo.

"MARCUS! ARE YOU—"

*Slam*

I land on the ground hard, cracking the dirt around me but overall I'm still good before I jog away to get some cake.

"… I forgot he can do that."

Steven chuckless before both he and Connie go down the ladder.

* * *

 **New chapter down. Sorry if some of you were expecting 'The Answer' but since that was mostly a flashback episode for Steven, their wasn't much I could add to devote an entire chapter to it. In the future I may expand on what happened in the flashback but I'm not too sure. As I stated before, the rating is going to be set back to M when this chapter was going to be released. Anyway, this chapter was alright to write. From what I can tell nothing too big went on here but I like the sentimental moments Marcus had with Steven and other moments he had as well.**

 **Also I want to go ahead and mention my random guess at what point in the season 1 was Steven's first birthday. The 'Too Many Birthdays' episode I don't recall it being Steven's birthday but more so his attempt at the gems birthdays but I digress. The wiki though does say that Steven Universe was originally 12 years old in season 1 and 13 in season 1 and 2. Don't know exactly when his first birthday was and if anyone has any concrete proof I wouldn't mind being informed of what's what you know? Regardless, I'm excited for the next set of chapters for this story because they'll touch up on some pretty heavy and interesting issues and moments, from the moon base, the drill, Lapis coming back, the Ruby's and so on. After the next round of chapters for my other stories, it's possible I may go on another binge of chapter's writing for 'A Tale of A Jade' but I'm not sure. There's also the problem of school starting up again so that'll take up some time again. Hopefully not as much with the classes I'll be taking but we'll see.**

 **Now onto other matters. I've recently gotten back to playing XCOM 2. Reason being is because when I first got the game after the first couple weeks it was released, I never finished it. Something would 0always come up that would warrant me to completely forgo the campaign playthrough I was playing and just start over. New graphics card for my PC, new mods added, new patch, things have gone bad for my soldiers and so on. Recently I figured out that the main reason why I went through FIVE separate campaigns without finishing them was because of the multitude of the mods I had added. It's because of them that made the playthrough sort of more difficult but also interesting is what left me sort of unfilled to finish it when I never finished the base part in the first place. For the past week I've been playing on a new campaign with no mods added and I'm determined to finish it before I go crazy with adding mods again. It's why my progress has been somewhat slow going this week since I've been focusing the majority of my attention on beating a game that's been sitting in my library for awhile now. It's time I get it finished.**

 **Bare with me please on that as I feel like it'll be maybe just less than a week till I beat it.**

 **Anyway, thank you all for your patience, have a great day and have fun reading.**


	56. 54 It Could've Been Great

Progress is coming along great with the drill. Time has progressed since Steven's birthday and so has progress on the drill. Already we've got the entire structure of the drill completed and almost ready to go. All that's needed now is to finalize some pieces, some circuits, controls here and there, make sure everything is connected since we no longer need to making anything from scratch, and there would be without a doubt that the drill to the center of the earth would be up and ready to get going on its trip to the center of the earth.

' _The center of the earth … wow.'_ I can't help but think at the idea of a super powerful gem fusion monster capable of destroying the planet right beneath my feet. The idea alone is jaw dropping and I'm sort of glad that it's not common knowledge to the general public. The amount of panic and how scared everyone would be would be immense.

After Steven's birthday, we've been working on the drill almost non-stop after Connie and Greg left so now we're taking a bit of a break from the work. Instead, we decide to just take a moment to relax and enjoy a moment of peace. No going anywhere, no doing anything, just sitting down… staring at the sunset and relax.

While Steven is lying down with Lion, strumming his ukulele as the others are further down the hill admiring the sunset, I decide to have my view of everything be on top of the silo, giving me a much wider and further view of everything around us. _'So close… we are so close now to the end of this. Just a bit more time, a bit more work and we got this.'_ Looking down to the ground, I see Peridot walking over to Steven with a drill in hand. Shifting my attention to the others, I tighten my hands as I stare into the ocean. _'For now. Your still out there Jasper… with Lapis.'_ I grit my teeth at my enemy and friend captive in the ocean. _'Hold out for a bit longer Lapis. Steven and I will come and get you soon.'_ Not wanting to wait anymore and feeling anxious to get started again, I slide down the ladder and walk behind the silo. _'I swear it.'_

 _[Steven] "Life and death and love and birth,  
And peace and war on the planet Earth.  
Is there anything that's worth more  
Than peace and love on the planet Earth"_

Stopping in my tracks, I hear what sounds like Steven singing. Huddling behind the silo I look back to them.

" _Oh - Whooah, come on and sing it with me...  
[Peridot] Sing?  
[Steven] The words relate to the key...  
[Peridot] Key?"_

Peridot joins in.

 _[Steven]" If it's a pattern,  
If it's a pattern,  
Then just repeat after me...  
Life and death and love and birth-_

 _[Peridot] "Life and death and love and birth-  
[Steven] Now you sing mi-fa-mi-mi-fa-mi-ti-la!  
[Both] And peace and war on the planet Earth!  
[Steven] Yes, yes! That's it!_

 _[Peridot] That's so easy.  
[Steven] Yeah, but that's what's fun about it.  
You should write something, you should write a song!  
[Peridot] About what?_

 _[Steven] Whatever you're thinking!  
[Peridot] I guess we're already here,  
I guess we already know.  
We've all got something to fear,_

 _We've all got nowhere to go.  
I think you're all INSANE!  
But I guess I am too...  
Anybody would be_

 _If they were stuck on Earth with you.  
[Steven] Hahaha yes!  
Life and death and love and birth and-  
[Amethyst] Life and death and love and birth and-"_

Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst join in singing with the two of them.

 _[Pearl] Life and death and love and birth and  
Peace and war on the planet Earth.  
[Garnet] Is there anything that's worth more?  
[Steven] Is there anything that's worth more?_

 _[Peridot] Is there anything that's worth more  
Than peace and love on the planet Earth..." _

With the final key given to Peridot, she finishes their impromptu sing group beautifully. They all share a laugh at the moment and I smile at them, for a moment. It turns into a frown as I make sense of their lyrics. "Peace, love… war…" I grimly state. Walking away with my hands in my pocket, I smirk. "Peace for who… doubt it. War…" I chuckle darkly as I recall the wars that this planet has been through. "Definitely… for gems, and humans."

I want that cluster gone already.

* * *

A few more days pass as we continue to work on the drill, finalizing the last of it in preparation for the trip. A problem I've sort of come across with the cockpit for the machine, which we decided to use Peridot's old escape pod for, is the small space it seems to be limited to. At best, those that are small, Peridot and Steven, maybe Amethyst, would be able to fit in and pilot the machine but taller gems, such as Pearl, Garnet and I would be a bit cramped in piloting the machine. Unfortunately, it's not like we have any other machines or seats that are able to be properly connected to the giant drill we have, so unless we have an exact timeline as to when the cluster would form, which we don't, we can't afford to reevaluate our plans.

Guess we'll cross that bridge when get to it.

We now stare at the completed form of the drill in front of us, ready to start drilling and find the cluster.

"Nice work." Garnet compliments Peridot and pats her on the back, but she jumps in fear. The gems laugh at her skittish attitude, I smirk, and Steven gives her a hug.

"We really did it, huh?"

Steven gasps at Peridot's words, "We?" He asks in awe. I guess what that means is how she's starting to be more a team player for us and not completely against us.

"Oh wait. I need to check something!" She suddenly says and runs to the drill in a haste.

"Huh, wonder what we missed?" I ask out loud. The others shrug but Steven has a wistful expression on his face.

"She's come so far. It feels like yesterday she was trying to kill us." He comments with a far off look.

"No no, that was several weeks ago." Pearl points out. I nod with her as well. Although for me it was a lot longer than that considering I was… indisposed by a vengeful family member. Just thinking about what he did, what he planned to do…

My fingers tighten up considerably and my bones pop as I remember the memories of what he did. "Coordinates!" Peridot's voice break me from my thoughts. "We still need the Cluster's exact coordinates in order to drill!" she informs us.

"Ughhhhh, great." I groan at yet more work we need to do. _'This better be the last of what we need. I wanna get back to my home already.'_ Since I've been back, I've barely stepped into my house and I'm getting antsy to get back into my bed and work on my stuff. I still have to make my rebreather, examine the bipedal combat robonoids and try to turn them, and so on.

"There's a Diamond base that may hold that information, but getting there is going to be difficult." Pearl informs us.

"Pearl," I call her name, "I can guarantee you that nowhere on earth will that base be able to keep itself from me. Just tell us where it is and we'll get it." I tell her with a firm confident smile. After all the crap I've been through with the Iron Kings, dealing with Peridot's indecisiveness and bigheadedness, getting all the materials needed to make the damn drill in the first place, nothing is going to keep me from those coordinates.

Pearl looks at me for a few seconds before she looks up. Following her gaze, my smile, my confidence, and my shoulders, all drop. "The mooooooon!"

"Yes, Steven, the moon."

"… I… may be wrong." I can't help but comment after Steven's gasp and amazement at the idea of going to the moon and Pearls confirmation of our destination. "Geez, how are we supposed to get to the where is he going?" I start to ask but Steven running right past me shifts my focus. We stare as he goes over to where Lion is resting.

"Lion! Can you make us a special super warp to the moon?" Steven asks the pink animal. He grunts and stretches his limbs but overall ignores Steven's request. "Come on, Lion, we gotta do this to stop the Cluster!" He pleads. "If we don't there's gonna be no more Earth! No more fun times with your pals, no more Lion Lickers… no more naps?"

He says the magic word because Lion gets up and lets out a mighty roar before opening his eyes. Pretty much when Lion's eyes turn glowing white, you know he's serious. "Wow, okay then." I comment on the animal's commitment to help us.

"Guess it was naps."

* * *

"Gaaaah!" I breathe in a burst of air as I am pulled out of Lion's mane. Almost immediately the room I now find myself in is black, dark and the air is stuffy but breathable compared to inside of Lion. Since not everyone could ride on the back of Lion, I was forced to be inside of his portal dimension while the gems rode on the back and Steven and Peridot ride in the entrance with me holding onto the both of them. Now as I am out, I see Peridot lying on the ground upside down, Steven consoling the now exhausted lion and the others starting to stand.

"You aright Marcus?" Garnet asks.

"Yeah… eh, I'm good." I reassure as I fully pull myself out of the dimension and stand on solid ground.

"Oh, Lion. You've earned your naps for the week." Steven tells the animal and hugs him.

"Yeah, nice one." I add as I pat his head. The pink animal breathes steadily from the amount of effort he seems to have exhibited. I standing straight, I pull out my flashlight and turn it on while Pearl, Garnet and Peridot do the same with their gems, adding even more illumination to our surroundings.

"We made it." Pearl confirms we are here.

"It doesn't... look like the moon." Steven points out.

"Must be in the base then. Good thing too. I don't think you and I would do so well out on its surface." Of that I am kind of grateful for us coming out inside the base. Another thing I am curious though is where exactly on the moon the base is. Underground? Surface? _'Nah, not the surface. It would have been spotted by humans looking to travel here.'_

"Hey, look over here! I think it's a door." Amethyst shouts and runs over to it. Before anyone else can say anything, she places her hand on a wall and two panels open to reveal the surface of the moon. Air sucks out of the base through the open door… including me.

"WHAAAAAOOOO!" I yell as I fly past Amethyst and out the door. A second passes before I start to climb my way back in with my swords stabbed into the ground. "Whoa!" I yelp again as I slide back with my swords tearing through the dirt before stopping and I strain to pull myself back in.

She takes her hand away and it closes. "Uhhh, yup! We on the moon!"

"Marcus!" Pearl and Garnet shout my name in worry but it's hard to hear. "Are you okay?" They ask.

Meanwhile I am lying on my side on the ground, shivering, legs tucked in with my teeth chattering repeatedly. "Cold… so cold…" In my cold state, I realize my flashlight is now floating through space.

*Zzzzztt*

"OW!" I yelp as a shock of electricity goes through me. Looking at Garnet, who has smile on her face, the action causes my blood to flow more as well as warm me up a little. "Thank you."

"You welcome."

"Amethyst, please! Don't blow us into space!" Pearl scolds her for opening the door, evidence of that is apparent on how everyone's hair is messed up and ragged from the sudden wind shift, including mine. I'm still shivering but not as much as I fix myself.

"Please." I beg a little after almost getting sucked into the void of space.

"Hahahaha." Steven's chuckling gets our attention and we see him floating around in the air. "Whoa, haha, look at me! I'm a… moon boy!" He happily shouts as he jumps through the air.

"Wha?" I say in confusion as I wonder how he's floating around, but then I remember where we are exactly. Testing the waters, I too jump into the air and find myself launched high into the air before floating back down. "Wow, cool." I can't help but share in Steven's excitement at the sudden weightless feeling we both share.

"Haha, alright moon boy!" Amethyst shouts as she sees the fun we both are having. She jumps in the air in an attempt to float around like us but instead falls to the floor with a grunt.

"Moon boy quadruple back flip!" Steven does said move with a care. I don't resort to anything flashy or dizzy inducing, focusing more on just going up and down all over the place.

"Hey! Why can't I be a moon boy?" Amethyst complains at her taking a face full of floor and Steven and I having fun bouncing around. I am curious though as to why she's unaffected by the gravity.

"We're gems, we're a space-faring race designed to conquer other worlds. Our physical forms adjust automatically to the gravity of any planetoid." Peridot explains. _'Huh, so that's what it is. Useful.'_

"Ahhh, lame." Amethyst complains.

"I was bouncing on the moon one day- Umph!" Steven starts singing but suddenly crashes against one of the walls.

"Steven!" I call out his name in worry at the smack he took before I land next to him. "You okay bro?" I ask while crouching next to him.

"Uh, yeah." He groans a bit before looking up. "Huh?" He looks past me in confusion. "Hey Peridot, who is this supposed to be?" He calls her. Looking back at the wall, I see what looks like a very large mural of someone that spans to the roof.

Peridot lets out a gasp at the picture we find. "It's Blue Diamond." She gasps in what I can tell is in awe. "Wait! Are they all here? Ahh yes! There she is!" She looks around before getting extremely excited at another mural and scampers off.

"Who?" Steven asks following after her.

While they go, I can't help but stare back at the mural of Blue Diamond. _'A diamond… wow. They look… big.'_ Judging from the almost angelic and mighty look that the Diamonds must be "Hm?" I say in confusion as I notice a wetness on my face. Touching my face I feel a tear go down one of my eyes. _'Weird. Must be the stuffy air.'_ True, since gems don't need air, it's not like this place has any filtering system for the air here. At this point I can practically see the dust and dirt in the air.

"Behold! Yellow Diamond!" Peridot's reverence at the other mural shifts my focus. Looking back at Blue Diamond, I rub the tears in my eye away before going over to the others. "Isn't she magnificent?!"

"Wow… so who are the Diamonds anyway? They seem like a big deal." Steven asks innocently but the look Peridot gives him is almost like he just slapped her.

"Are you joking me?! The Diamonds are the Gem matriarchs! Together they make up the Great Diamond Authority that governs Homeworld and all the outlying colonies! We live to serve them!" Peridot explains to the both of us with a lot of awe and excitement in her voice. _'Wow, she's really into these Diamonds.'_ I can't help but think at her attitude. I also can't help but grin at seeing Garnet walk behind the green gem, clear her throat loudly, and look down at her with an annoyed expression.

The nervous laughing and sweat drop she sports is satisfying. "I mean, we were all made to serve them, even though some of us… don't anymore…" Their is a noticeable awkward pause. "Hey, I think that's a control service over there! Let's take a look." She 'skillfully' shifts our attention to the other side of the room and heads over.

"Yeah!" Steven follows her.

Garnet and I look at each other. I give her a thumbs up. She nods and we both walk over to where Peridot is inspecting a panel on the floor. Amethyst joins us too while Pearl examines the walls for a way out. Preferably not outside. "Whatcha' got?" I ask.

"I think this is right. The material is different from the surrounding stone. I think if I just do this…" She slides her hands across the panel, making it light up before it rises up, as does the rest of the panels around the room to create a set of stairs. Unfortunately Lions was laying on some of them so when they go up, he's knocked over in the process before staring around confused. At the discovery, Peridot giggles excitedly before we all start heading up the stairs. While they all simply walk up like regular stairs, Steven and I take to jumping up several steps at once. "This is so incredible. Only the most elite of the elite can enter these sanctums. We are literally walking in the very footsteps of the diamonds!"

"They must really like stairs." Steven comments. Pretty much the whole set of stairs runs up and along the circular walls to the top and this place is really big. As we are going up, I notice another mural of a diamond we pass. While the others continue on, I stare at the gem pictured on the wall. _'She's… different. Her color looks to be—'_

Flashes of White Diamond appear in my mind, several images, orders, voices—

* * *

" _Give… to… -ond!"_

" _YOU. HAVE. FAILED!"_

* * *

"Marcus?"

My eye shoot open and I realize my hand is pressing to my head. Looking left and right, I notice Pearl looking back at me. "Coming!" I shake my head and continue on with the others.

"Are you okay?" Pearl asks.

"Hm? Oh yeah. I'm cool. Let's keep going." Not wanting to dwell on it, I focus our attention forward as I pass her. _'What the hell was that?'_ I ask myself as I catch up to the others. Looking back I see Pearl come back from a glance to the mural but she doesn't see me looking at her. _'Focus on the cluster.'_ I concede to myself.

Before long we come upon the next floor of this place, and it isn't much. At first glance the room is completely bare except for a mysterious ball like object suspended in the middle of the room. "Hey, what's this room?" Steven asks.

"It's not what we came here for." Garnet states after glancing at the object and continuing on.

"Can we hurry it up? This place gives me the creeps." Amethyst adds as she and the rest go up to the next floor. Steven and I continue to stare at the object before we both glance at each other with curious looks. With not much else this room is giving us, and the fact we are already on a mission, we forget about it and head up. As soon as we all reach the top of the stairs, there is without a doubt in anyone's mind as to where we are.

"We really are on the moon." Steven says and I can't help but agree. The clear glass walls make this entire place breathless to us as we see outside into the void of space perfectly.

"Wait." A thought pops into my head and I go over to one of the windows. When I don't see what I want as I scan the moons surface, I go around the entirety of the room as I stare out.

"What are you doing?" Peridot asks me but I ignore in favor of hoping to find what I'm looking for.

"I wonder if I can find… Ah ha!" I triumphantly shout as I spot the flag. "There it is! Ha! Eat your heart Armstrong!" I can't help but yell in giddiness and arm pump as I spot the flag off in the distance.

"Eh-hem." Freezing, I look over to see the others giving me curious and confused looks. The person who cleared her throat was Garnet and she's giving me a stare. "You done?" She asks.

A blush forms on my face as I just realize what I did. "Ehhehehe. Uhhhh sorry." I embarrassingly rub the back of my head before walking back to them.

"Well, now that he's done. Let's get back to the mission at hand. There should be a- Ah! Oh my goodness!" Peridot interrupts herself before jogging over to some sort of terminal with a giant chair in front of it up a flight of stairs. Naturally, we follow. "This looks like it could be brand new! I mean it's a relic by today's standards, but, golly! It's so elegant, so simple, so perfect!" She ogles the plainish looking white rectangle terminal in front of us.

"So how do you turn it on?" Amethyst asks. Looking at the machine, there's nothing on it that gives any sort of indication to what might activate it.

"… I have no idea." And Peridot just signs are cluelessness on how to get it working.

"Too old for your tastes?" I ask her with a cheeky smile. She opens her mouth to retort but the terminal suddenly lights up. "Huh?"

"Hey, it's got one of those glowy hand dealies." Steven pipes up from behind us. Turning around we see he's on the chair with the same hand activator as back in his moms armory on the right armrest.

"You can't sit there!" Peridot suddenly yells at him. I look at her confused at what's got her so critical all of a sudden.

"Why not? It's really cool." Steven says as he gets himself a bit comfier.

"That chair is only for the most elite Gems!" She explains. "You can't go around sitting where an Elite would sit."

"Well they aren't here now," Steven scoots over and pats the spot next to him, "right?" He asks her.

Seeing the indecisiveness in her, I decide to egg her on a bit. "Yeah Peridot." I say as I walk around the chair and sit on the left armrest before gesturing to the whole thing. "Just think about it: At what point in your near infinite ageless life will you be able to sit in the exact spot that the legendary diamonds sat." I teasingly say as I run my right hand over the side of the chair, both to entice her and to steady myself as I sit. Frankly it doesn't matter to me that I'm sitting here but to Peridot, as devoted as she seems to the diamonds, I bet this is her freaking lottery.

She stares at us on the chair with an unsure look, then glances left. Finally she concedes and sits down on the chair next to Steven on his right. "Nehehehehe." She giggles excitedly and giddily. I smile at just how she's acting right now. Compared to the serious and stoic version when we first met, its kind of cool seeing her act like this.

"Hey, what's this doodad for?" Steven picks up a diamond looking device in front of me on the armrest. Actually it looks like a white octahedral crystal but from the front it looks like a diamond.

"Put that back!" The green gem scolds him and he reluctantly puts back in place. I look at the device and go to pick it up so I can look at it. "Hm, okay, let's see here…" She flicks a switch.

"Oh god!" Before I can look at said device, I suddenly find myself falling onto the ground after the chair suddenly moved forward. Obviously sitting on the armrest isn't a good idea when that happens because I suddenly find myself on my ass on the cold floor. Grabbing the chair with one hand, I hoist myself up and promptly straighten my clothes with a straight face. "Shut up." I quickly interrupt Amethyst before she can say anything if the grin she's sporting has anything to say.

"Anyway, here we go." Peridot gets our attention, thankfully, and starts manipulating the terminal. "This is a really old system." She comments on the tech as more screens start to shift around.

' _Old for you maybe. This puts anything developed by humans to shame.'_ I think. "Can you find the info?" I ask her.

"Just gotta find the right file… aha! Cluster, Cluster where are you, Cluster? Aha!" She switches through different files from what I can tell until she comes across the right file we need. A location of where the Cluster was embedded into the planet pops up. "There's the insertion point. Looks like the Beta Kindergarten in Facet Nine. It's the smaller of the two, not nearly as impressive as yours, Amethyst." She sucks up to the purple gem but its what she said before that gets my attention.

"Beta? There's a second kindergarten?" I ask her in surprise.

"Uhh… thanks?" Amethyst awkwardly thanks her.

"But where is the cluster now?" Pearl asks, leaving my question largely to go unanswered.

"Hang on…" I growl in annoyance at the ignorance of my question. _'I'll find out later, hopefully.'_ "There it is!" A new image appears on screen of the inside of the earth. It's embedded deep into the mantle, relative to the barn its roughly two thousand five hundred units down. All we need to do is feed this data to the drill and we should be all set." _'Okay not exactly the center of the planet but close enough.'_

"Finally." I sigh in relief at getting this info.

"That's it then, mission accomplished!" Pearl declares ecstatic.

"Yeah team!" So does Steven.

"Great, let's get the heck out of here." Amethyst grumbles as she Pearl and Garnet proceed to walk away.

"Wait! Hold on, does this thing have any games on it?" Steven asks curiously towards the green gem.

"No no no no, this wasn't used for games."

"Aw."

"It was used for planning a colony. Here, look." What makes us all pause is the new images on the screen that Peridot pulls up. I move over to the chairs right as the others come back to see. "So here is a map of all structures that were originally built on Earth. All told, this probably only accounts for maybe, five percent of what was originally planned." She informs us as more images of gem structures appear. Some of them I recognize others I don't. _'All I've seen was only five percent? Wow.'_

"What was the plan?"

"Well, let's take a look." She hits a few more buttons and what looks like a sped up version of the earth's colonization takes place. The new hologram projected is what appears to be a hollow Earth, with rings around it, several buildings and structures that span what could possibly be miles high into space.

"Woah." I breathe in awe at the image.

"Ta-da! A finished Earth colony. Wow, look at this! Eighty-nine kindergartens, sixty-seven spires, a Galaxy Warp in each facet, efficient use of all available materials. What were you thinking, shutting this operation down? It could've been great!"

"No! You're wrong!" Garnet angrily states at Peridot's happiness towards what would have happened to the planet.

"What do you mean? It's perfect, look at it." Peridot says, oblivious to the growing anger on the war veterans.

"We are looking at it."

"Yeah, this plan stinks!"

"Completing this colony would have meant the extinction of all life on Earth!" Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet each say their piece on the image angrily.

"But think of the good it would have done. The Gems that would have been made, our Empire expanded." Peridot tries to reason but the others aren't budging.

"Rose Quartz believed all life was precious, and worth protecting." Pearl firmly states and stares at Peridot.

"Well if she wanted to protect it she did a lousy job! There'd be no cluster if the Earth had stayed a colony. Now there's no colony, and there's gonna be no Earth, so thank you, Rose Quartz! You doomed the planet!"

That last statement was the final nail in Peridot's coffin so to say as each of the veterans of the gem war give death stares at the green gem. I meanwhile don't care and just continue to admire the work on the planet.

"Whooohehehe." Steven laughs nervously at the glares Peridot is getting. "Is there anything that's worth more th-?" He begins to sing a lyric from the song the others have sung before but stops as Garnet picks up Peridot by the front of her tunic and glares at her.

"You, listen to me, now. You are talking about things that you do not understand…"

"Wow… amazing." At my comment, I can feel everyone's stares boring into me from the side.

No one says anything as I no doubt surprised them. "Whaaa? Oof!" Peridot questions in confusion before being dropped by Garnet.

"Look at this." I say as I point to the really tall structure on the hologram. "Those structures span miles into the air. The amount of construction and work that they would have put into this is phenomenal. How would they be able to hollow out the very molten core of the planet and still keep surface and crust of the planet intact without it breaking apart?" I question.

"What?!" I look back to see the gems very very confused at my comments on the terraformed earth. "Are you crazy?!" Pearl asks.

I stare at them for a second as I recall a lot of what I've done in the past. "Maybe a little."

"You mean to tell me you actually LIKE this?!" Garnet asks loudly and angrily as she comes right up to me.

I don't back down from her intimidating stature as I shrug. "Not really like, but I do admire the construction at the very least. Something of this scale definitely can't be eas—" I'm interrupted as my view of the hologram switches to Garnet grabbing me by the front of my shirt with both hands and pulling me right up to her.

"Did you not hear what I said? If this colony was completed then all organic life on earth would be extinguished! Don't you care about your own kind?!" She yells at me.

I go to retort, to tell her yes I do, but the thoughts of what happened my entire life flow forth.

* * *

My father.

" _Don't you even talk about her! You don't deserve to even have her gems!"_

* * *

My uncle.

" _Get some guys to the town. We're grabbing the kid. That'll make him talk."_

" _You just didn't cooperate now could you?!"_

* * *

The Mugger.

" _You can't do it. Not when I'm down like this. You don't have the guts to-"_

 _*BANG!*_

* * *

And the Iron Kings especially. Those bastards have come after me under the order from my uncle and I killed them for it. So many times in my life have I been burned constantly by the scrutiny of my own kind. Even more so than what Homeworld and the corrupted have ever done. And that's only what they've done to me. The atrocities my kind have committed against themselves and the planet are staggering as well.

I realize now I care more about gems rather than humanity as a whole.

"… No." Some pairs of eyes widen at my answer. "As it turns out, I don't really care about my own kind. Only Steven and the people of Beach City but that's about it." I answer simply.

Garnet looks at me in utter bafflement, Pearl has a look of shock and Amethysts mouth is open in shock. Garnet shakes her head, looking to the sides before fixing her gaze right back at me even closer. "Wha- But… are you crazy?! Mad?!" She asks me loudly with a hint of anger in her voice.

' _Mad… she doesn't know mad.'_ "Mad… you think I'm mad crazy to go against my own kind?" I ask her in low tone before I thrust my arms forward and push her off me. She lands on her back with a grunt before propping herself up with her arms and stares at me, now surprised at my action and the look of anger on my face. "You… have NO IDEA WHAT I'VE GONE THROUGH BECAUSE OF THEM!" I yell at her.

"Marcus—"

"No Pearl!" I whirl around on her, making her stop and take a step back in fear. "You have no idea what my own kind have done to me my entire life! My father never loved me, not at all! The beatings he gave me and how much he resented me because my mom gave her life for me! The times I've been hunted by the Iron Kings. Killing them. Fighting and worried all the time if whether or not they'll suddenly appear on my doorstep. You know my uncle sent them against me?" I tell and ask them, eliciting a surprised look from them about how my own family member has sent armed thugs to kill or capture me. "That's right. My own uncle sent armed men to capture me. When he captured me, you know what he did? He beat me relentlessly to get me to tell him where my father is. I didn't know then but I know now. They're both DEAD!" I yell furiously at them. The gems have sacrificed a lot to save humans on earth, but they don't know what the humans have done to me. "What's worse?! I KILLED THEM!"

Looks of shock grace each and everyone of their features, except Peridot who doesn't know the concept of family, fathers and uncles but its everyone else that looks on in complete shock.

"I killed my father and my uncle. Why? Because. I. Had. No. CHOICE!" I yell and grip my from head from all the yelling. My heart is beating a million time a minute, my vision becomes blurry from the tears and my breathing is strained. I close my eyes as everything starts to flow forth. "They tried to kill me… my own… human… family tried to kill me. The Iron Kings have sent armed men… to kill me so many times. My best friend… years ago… killed by a mugger and his friends, his family too." I turn away and start pacing. "And that was all just to me. So many times I've watched… the horrors that human greed and selfishness can wrought!" I grip my hair tightly in my hands as reports of what humans have done to the planet and others flash through my mind. "The amount of polluting and angst that have been done to the planet just to suit their own greed. The amount of atrocities my kind have done to themselves." The single greatest war in human history comes forth into my mind. My back is to the others as I let go of my head and slowly stare at the stars in space. "Over forty… million causalities because of The Great War. From 1914 to 1918 did the war last. Four years of people killing, dying, stabbing and blowing each other up." I calmly state. I slowly turn towards them and they recoil as I bare my teeth at them. "Can you tell me out of ALL that I told you, all the stuff that I went through, the horrors my kind have committed that we even deserve… deserve…" My rant trails off as the blurriness of my vision becomes too much. A headache becomes too much as well and I stumble. I start to feel dizzy as I place both my hands on my head. _'I'm angry… so angry… why?'_ I question in my head as I stumble back against the glass windows. Placing my hands on them as I breathe raggedly, I look up.

Red eyes stare back at me.

*Thump-Thump*

"Nooo." I breathe in horror as I realize what this means with my heart throbbing loudly to my head. "Argh!" I grunt as pain shoots through my left arm. Gripping it with my right arm, I stare with wide eyes as I watch my nails start to lengthen and sharpen, then my arm grows longer and strands of fur just starts to grow. "No… Nononono."

"Marcus?"

"NOOO! NOT NOW!" I move away from whoever was coming up behind me and move to the terminal before bringing my arm up and slamming it into the computer. I repeat the action a few times before it starts to crack and splinter. Despite the pain in my arm, the transformation continues. "Noooo! I won't let you go free!" I yell and punch my transforming left arm with my right. The pain gets bad and it slows a little but it's still going. I can feel it trying to get free and I can't let it. "You were a mistake! I should never have let you loose on them!" I shout defiantly at the limb. It starts twitching but not from my own actions. Growling in anger, my sword appears in my right hand and I bring it over my head. "I WON'T LET YOU OUT!"

"Stop!"

"What are you doing?!"

"Steven stay back!"

Garnet and Amethyst jump onto me and stop my arm from doing the deed. Pearl holds Steven back from getting too close. "No stop! Get off!" I yell for them to do but they both hold on tightly.

"No way man!"

"We don't know what's going on but we aren't going to let you mutilate yourself!"

"You don't understand! I have to—"

"You don't have to do anything!" Garnet interrupts me as I close my eyes and struggle. "We're your friends! Your family! Tell us what's wrong and we'll help you!"

"You can't—"

"Marcus please don't do it!"

"Stop it!"

"You can't do this!"

' _So many voices… so many people yelling… I can't… I can't I can't let—'_ My eyes shoot open. "Hraaa!" With a twist of my body, I throw them off me.

"Ah!"

"Oof!" They grunt as they fall away but I go back to what I was doing.

Sword in my right hand, the twitching arm on the terminal, I wield my sword in its reverse grip and bring high into the air. "Brother! Please stop!" Steven's words break my heart.

My hand starts shaking uncontrollably I prepare myself. "… I'M SORRY!"

"NOOO!"

*SHINK*

* * *

A deafening silence follows the stab. Everyone stares in shock at the back of the hybrid. His breathing comes in long ragged breaths as he stands in front of the terminal. The hologram on top disappears from the abuse it took but everyone's focus is on the hybrid as he falls to his knees. Steven eases himself out of the slackened grip of Pearls and slowly moves over to his brothers left side. He expects to see a lot of blood as he sees his face, but that's not what he finds.

His hand is normal and his sword is stabbed all the way to the hilt through the terminal… to his hands right. Steven looks up at Marcus's face to see his lips pursed closed and his eyes closed tightly, however that doesn't stop the tears from flowing down his face. "Marcus…" Slowly, he opens his eyes and turns to Steven, who has a worried look on him. "Are you… okay?"

Marcus blinks a couple times before staring at the damage he caused. His left arm is bruised but not broken and his green katana is stabbed completely through the fractured, broken and splintered terminal. He finally let's go of the blade and turns himself around before sitting down. His legs curl up and his hands cover his face as the tears continue to pour and he sniffles. "I'm not. It hurts Steven… it hurts so much. I don't… I can't…"

Steven lays his hand on his brothers arm. This makes him bring one of his hands down to look at his brother. He gives Marcus a comforting smile. "Whatever it is, we can help. I promise."

They stare at each other for a few more seconds before Marcus nods. He wipes his tears and slowly stands with Steven's help. His body is fatigued from the inner emotional and psychological battle he just went through. He can't even look at the others in the eyes as Steven leads him to the stairs. "Let's… can we go home please? I… I have to tell you all something." He stops to tell them before going.

The rest of the gems look at each other, unsure of what it was they just saw but nod and follow after him with Peridot lagging behind.

As soon as everyone leaves, the sword in the terminal disappears and the machine crumples apart finally.

* * *

 **Well, this went off the rails of what I originally had planned. If I had to guess why earth hasn't seen the tall structure on the moon, I'm gonna go with the idea that reflective material on the outside of the structure makes it seem like it's not there to naked eye. That's my interpretation anyway. For all I know in the Steven Universe version that humans never did travel to the moon. The wiki also says that on their earth, World War 2 never happened. However there's nothing really saying that World War 1 never happened. Thereby why I had it called The Great War. I don't really know about the other somewhat smaller wars on the planet so I'll leave that up to the imagination. If anyone has any hard evidence, texts and dialogues from the show, quotes and statements from the creators, as to the history of humanity in Steven Universe, besides the wiki that is, then I'd appreciate some info to make things accurate in a way.**

 **The whole confrontation that the gems had with Marcus is mostly revolving around the fact that they spent thousands of years defending earth from the tyranny of the diamonds and lost a great many friends and allies in their war so to someone contradicting their sacrifices in said war, no doubt they'll be a little angry. Thing is, since they saved humanity and isolated themselves from the rest of the world as best they can, they don't have as much information on the affairs the rest of the world faces. This leading to Marcus's anger from both the beast wanting out inside him, and his dislike for his human half considering it's humans that have caused the greatest damage and scarring to him in his entire life.**

 **Suffice to say, he's got some explaining to do to the Crystal gems when they return to earth.**

 **Anyway, with that done, I'd like to say that there's a chance I'm going to do another run through of chapters for this story because I'm excited for the next set of events I have but I'm not a hundred percent sure. Regardless I'm sure things will go alright and I hope I can get at least another chapter out before classes start again.**

 **Now onto my gaming life. For Honor Season 3. I've tried out the new Highlander hero and he is amazing. I love the moves he has and uses and I'm excited to see what his equipment looks in the later stages. I at first thought he was going to be a heavy but that's not the case. He's a hybrid and not surprising his difficulty is hard. What is surprising is that the Gladiator's difficulty is easy and he's classified as an assassin. Go figure.**

 **Oh also before I forget, there is another bit of information that has come to my attention that I want to say to you all:**

 **Happy 1 Year Anniversary everyone! (Thank you seruis for the reminder)**

 **Well technically it was a couple days ago that it would an exact year to when I first uploaded 'A Tale of a Jade' but it's still awesome nonetheless. I'm still blown away at how many of you have read, viewed, favorited, followed and reviewed this story of mine and it feels great. I couldn't have done it without you all and thank you.**

 **Nothing else to say so I'll bid you all bye for now. Thank you all for your continued support, have a great day, and as always have fun reading.**


	57. 55 Message Received

The moon base mission was success. We got the coordinates for the Cluster but of course something else just had to happen. I just never thought it would have been me.

After my… episode back on the moon base and we headed back home in silence and it was starting to get to night time when we arrived. I told the others to gather around the fire while I has a small talk with Peridot.

After I talked to her, she looked like she was freaking out and tense about something but was on board with the idea of me telling them. She's still considered an outside basically so I don't think she cares about what persona issues I and the gems have with each other but she's the only other person to have seen it so I felt I needed to consult her.

* * *

 _The others are sitting around the campfire, waiting for me to talk but I pace around the fireplace. After a few seconds of battling my inner thoughts I finally stop and take in a deep breath between them and the fire."First off, I wish to apologize for my… attitude back on the moon base. I shouldn't have dropped all that on you at once and I'm sorry." They nod at my apology but I continue before they talk. "Second… there's something about me that's… dangerous. Something that I don't have control over."_

 _They all look at each other in confusion at my odd statement to them. "What do you mean?" Pearl asks._

 _I take a moment to breathe before talking. "I… I'm not a hundred percent sure if this is true or not but… I think… I'm corrupted." I finally tell them. Since the first time I turned into that thing, I was always scared of what it might do after it came so close to attacking Lapis. After my escape from the Iron Kings compound, again, the slaughter that thing wrought on them was the stuff of nightmares. I cannot let that thing out again._

 _Surprise graces all their features before they look at me with disbelief. "Are you sure?" Amethyst asks._

" _Well, Jasper said so right before she captured me when she first arrived."_

" _Jasper?" Amethyst says the gems name with a snarl before scoffing at the idea. "Pfff. She was just hung up on you being your mom. Just like she was with Steven and Rose. If she said so, I wouldn't worry about what she thinks. I'm not surprised if she tried some dirty moves to get inside your head."_

 _I stare at Amethyst at her simple brush off of the info, but its not like they've seen it. "PERIDOT!"_

" _Gah!" A cry of surprise goes off from the barn before the green gem comes scrambling out and closes the door quickly. "I wasn't doing anything!" She quickly claims as she's pressed up against the barn doors, much to all our confusion. We stare for a second before she composes herself and walks closer to us. "What need do you have of I?"_

" _Tell them."_

 _At my statement, she looks at my with surprise and goes to complain but a nod from me stops her. She stares before looking at the others and nods. She calmly walks up next to in front of the others and I walk to the side. "What he said, is correct." She confirms. Surprise and disbelief again they have but Peridot continues. "I'm not experienced in the field of these corrupted monsters I've heard about, I wasn't formed during the gem war here for earth and I have not encountered any of them during my time here. However, what I do know is that Jasper called this being right here," She specifies by pointing directly at me but continue to stare at them. "Corrupted. If that wasn't evident enough, then the… transformation surely was."_

" _Tranformation?" Garnet asks._

" _Yes. Right before my eyes I saw him change into something different. Something big, powerful… horrifying. A monster is the simplest term. No offense." She quickly adds directed at me. I'm not mad at her for it being the truth._

" _It's okay. That's all I need. You can go back to doing whatever it is you were doing." I dismiss her. At my advice she sweat drops for some reason but smiles and scampers off back into the barn. The others turn back to me since I retake my position but for some reason Steven keeps his focus on her a bit more than the others. I wait for him to turn back before I continue. "When they arrived, after you all were rendered unconscious or… sent to your gems," Garnet looks down at that part, "I tried to fight but Jasper beat me, bad. Bones broken and cuts to the point I couldn't get up. I wanted to fight and destroy her so bad that I just focused all my hatred on ending her. That was the trigger for the first time. It was strong enough to almost defeat Jasper but Peridot intervened at the right time to beat me, thankfully."_

" _Thankfully?" Steven asks in confusion. "If this monster was close to beating Jasper, isn't that a good thing?"_

 _I run a hand through my hair and sigh. "Yeah, it almost shattered Jasper, Peridot… and Lapis." I say after a moment's hesitation._

" _Lapis?!" Steven says in surprise. "But she's our friend!"_

" _Yes! Friend to us!" I tell him firmly before I look down saddened again. "But not it. He didn't care and if Peridot hadn't taken me down when my back was turned, then I don't even want to know what it would have done to everyone." I declare. We may have dealt with the stuff on the ship yes but I don't know how to get out when I change. All the times I've come back was through severe trauma and pain._

" _You said the first time. When was the second?" Pearl asks, catching onto that bit with precision. The memories of what happened the second time haunt me and I can tell most of them._

" _Steven," My brother perks up at my calling him, "Is there something you can go do? III… don't want you to hear this next part." I tell him uneasily as I rub my left arm with my right. He stares at me for a bit and I'm afraid he's going to fight to stay and listen, but after looking back at the barn then back to me, he nods. An immense relief washes over me. "Good. Please." I gesture to the barn. "I promise to tell you eventually but for now, thank you." I thank him. He gets up but before he goes, he walks over and hugs me. I return it and he gives me a comforting smile, which I return, and he goes to inside the barn. My smile falls as I continue. "The second time wasn't as reserved to gems. My most recent capture by the Iron Kings… forced my hand." I tell them grimly._

" _But… if this thing was powerful enough to take on Jasper, then… to humans…" She leaves the statement unfinished but she doesn't need to finish._

 _My face becomes downtrodden with the fires highlighting the grim demeanor of my form. "…Their were no survivors… Including my uncle."_

 _Looks of horror forms across all three of them. "Oh my."_

" _Woah."_

" _Is that why you said they won't be bothering us?" Garnet asks. I nod grimly at the truth. "Mmm." She looks down as she processes what I said._

" _This… thing… inside of me wants out. It wants to fight…" I bring my hands up and stare at them. "It wants to fight those that are worthy or something like that it doesn't care whatsoever who gets in its way. That's why I was so forceful on myself back at the moon base because it wanted out again." As I remember what happened back at the moon base to trigger it, comparing the other times it came out; I think I can tell the correlation. "I… I think I know what triggers it." They look at me expectantly for the answer. "From what I can tell, it's anger I believe. The first time, Jasper beat me and I wanted to end her. Second time, my uncle said something that made my blood boil and the moon base… well, we know how that was."_

 _They nod at what happened at the base. They may have involuntarily triggered it, but its not like I'm an expert on what it is either. "What did your uncle say to make you so angry?" Pearl asks._

 _I stare at her for a bit before I turn around and stare into the fire. Some people find a sense of calmness about them whenever they stare into the core of a burning fire. I can see why as I stare into the one in front of us. "You really want to know?" I ask with a sideways glance to them._

" _We need to know everything, to make sure we don't accidentally trigger it." Garnet states firmly. Their all tense at this new development but nod nonetheless._

 _I continue to look before sighing and staring back at the fire. "… He said, 'Get some guys to the town. We're grabbing the kid. That'll make him talk.'" I tell them in a grim tone. I can almost feel the shift in emotions the others feel. Emotions from surprise, disbelief… and anger. I keep mine in check as I bring my right hand up and stare at it with the fire outlining it. "I regret letting it out and killing so many people, even if they were criminals," My hand closes tightly before turning back to look at them, "I don't regret ending him."_

The second he decided to bring my brother into the my and his affair, it was the moment he signed his death warrant. It's a sad and bad thing to want, but family being based on blood alone means nothing to me. Family isn't who you're born with…

It's who you die for.

And Steven Universe and the Crystal gems are exactly who I'd die for.

After the discussion, we lulled into a foreboding silence but they expressed their wishes that after we finish up with the Cluster will we figure out how to deal with my demon. I thanked them for that and understood the priority on the Cluster. If we focused on me, then it wouldn't matter if the Cluster destroyed the planet we inhabit.

However after that, a new problem made itself known, as usual, but this time from a surprising source.

"She took a direct line to the Diamonds!" Pearl exclaims loudly in surprise. "From the moon base? What was she thinking?" Apparently, after the scene I made at the moon base Peridot decided to take the opportunity and take the diamond-looking device off the Diamonds chair which happens to be what Pearl says, a direct comm. line to the Diamonds. To say we are all a little ticked off would be an understatement.

"Man, after everything we've gone through, she's still out to get us!" Amethyst angrily states. "Ohh, I'm takin' back all my cool nicknames for her! So long, Peri and P-dot, hello… uhh… ah… Ahhhhh, I'm too mad! I'll think of something later."

*Honk*Honk*

Repeated horn honks can be heard from the barn. "I see she knows what a horn is now." Steven states annoyed before tying his jackets hood tighter over his face.

"You locked her in the truck?" I ask. He nods still angry towards the barn. "Huh, nice."

"You offered her a lot of your trust." Garnet tells Steven, who turns to look at the fusion.

"I did! And it blew up in my face." He states annoyed. "You guys have been protecting Earth for thousands of years. She could've destroyed all of that. A whole earth, why did I think I could change her mind?" He asks himself sadly.

"Ugh, I know right? But I guess you can't like go into peoples heads and change how they think. Maybe we can?" I look at Amethyst weirdly at her suggestion. "Yeaaah if we just shrink down really little—"

"No no no," Thankfully Steven puts a stop to that plan. "I don't want to tell her what to do. She should just know. Shouldn't she?" He asks as he looks at the barn again.

Staring at the barn too, I'm angry at how Peridot took the opportunity to snag something in which she could talk directly to the Diamonds and didn't bother telling us about it. The fact that she didn't states that she wanted to contact them without our knowledge, if her sketchy and tense attitudes earlier ago were of any indication. I walk up to Steven and place a hand on his shoulder. He looks up at me and I smile comfortingly at him. "Your good Steven. You tend to see the good in everyone and try to help them. That's a good thing to have."

"He's right." Garnet backs me up too, making us look back to her. "It's 'cause you believe in everyone Steven. Like your mother, you seem to have a little more patience than the rest of us. But the truth is, not everyone deserves that patience." She explains to him with a smile.

"And she's right too." I pipe up with arms crossed. "You gave her plenty of opportunities and it was her decision to squander them. There wasn't anything wrong in you giving her a chance. It was her fault on her decision." I try to make him feel better and shift his depressed attitude.

"I guess."

"Look on the bright side." Pearl chimes in, still holding the comm. device. "At least you got this thing away from her before she did any real damage."

For a moment, Steven looks alright with that. "… Yeah."

We smile at that at least.

*CRASH*

For a second. The entire side of the barn suddenly explodes in a large cloud of dust and debris.

"Ohhhhhh nooooo!" Steven moans as we stare at what emerges from the cloud.

To my horror and dismay, the familiar green robot belonging to Peridot that Pearl and I took on in our respective mechs waddles out, along with Peridot in the cockpit laughing maniacally. "Free, freeeee! Ahahaha!" She declares with a laugh.

"Oh maaaan." I moan as somehow she was able to get that thing working after the beat down Vindicator gave it. _'All I have on me is my swords and my pistols. My rifle is in the barn! Oh crap! I hope she didn't step on it!'_

"How did she escape?" Steven asks and I'm curious too. Sure it was an old truck that she was locked in but I'm sure with a bit of thinking she could—

"Ah!"

"Woah!" Pearl gasps and I jump to the side as a car door suddenly embeds itself into the ground where I was just standing with the window removed.

"Fools! Your invisible rotary shield was no match for me… once I applied logic!" She declares loudly in her boisterous attitude. Steven grunts in frustration at the news while the rest of us charge her. The other go straight towards her while I start to circle around. I get ready to pull out my pistols as we get closer to her but she suddenly reaches into the barn and pulls out the truck she was trapped in. "Now I'm going to do this right." And chucks it at the others.

"Scatter!" I quickly order to them and they do so. They all jump back just as the truck crashes to where they were standing. "Oh crap."

"Get away from me!" Stomping vibrations and Peridot's voice forces me to look back at her as she starts bolting towards them in their dazed state. Before I can do anything, she aims her arm towards me as she goes past. My experiences in our robot battle reminds me that having her arm aimed at me is not a good idea. My instincts prove true as the second I jump back does her clawed arm shoot straight towards where I was standing. The crash sends me stumbling back but it gives Peridot enough distance to head to the others. She plucks the communicator from Pearl and Amethyst's hands. "See? None of you know what you doing!" She tells us all before she runs away with the communicator in her robots claws.

"Damn." I groan as I stand straight and watch as she runs away. _'We can't let her get that thing working. If she does, she could call for backup and I am NOT in the mood to deal with anymore of Homeworlds crap!'_ I look around for something that may be able to help us in catching up to her and take down that behemoth and my eyes lock on. "Perfect." I mutter with a smile and take off.

"Marcus!"

"Go! I'll catch up!" I call back with a wave and focus more on running.

* * *

"What is he—"

"Forget him!" Amethyst interrupts Pearl as she gets a toothy smile on her face as her gem begins to glow. "I've been ready for this!" She says and per her love of shapeshifting does she turns herself into a giant purple helicopter. "Get in." She demands for the others to do.

Pearl and Garnet get in without question. "Where's Steven?" Pearl asks over the fluttering of the helicopter blades above them. They look out to see Steven nearby sulking.

"Stupid Peridot, stupid giant robot! Oh why, oh why did I have to encourage her?" He grumbles to himself angrily. Not wanting to leave him alone, Garnet shapeshifts her arm longer and stretches it to grab him and bring him between her and Pearl.

"There's no time for feeling horrible. We have to catch Peridot before she contacts Yellow Diamond." Garnet tells him as they firmly set themselves in and start lifting off.

"That's right. You can feel horrible all you want back at the temple." Pearl tries to make him feel better by also patting his head but she just makes him feel even worse at the statement. Probably not intentionally but still.

Regardless though, Amethyst begins flying through the air overhead and heading straight for where Peridot took off with their objective. Peridot meanwhile uses her robot claws to fiddle with the communicator to try and turn it on. Unfortunately her focus on the device doesn't allow her to spot the shadow looming over her. She looks up to see the purple helicopter looking at her. "What's up, Perisnot?!"

"Good one, Amethyst!" Steven compliments their purple ride. As Pearl and Garnet summon their weapons, the green gem yelps in shock at the weapons aimed at her.

She grunts as Garnet launches her gauntlets likes missiles directly at the gems robot. She's thrown off the main road and teeters precariously close to landing on the power lines but rights herself up before she can hit. "Graaaaa! You'll pay for—" Peridot begins to aim her claws at the purple helicopter but the roar of an engine gets her attention just enough for her to hesitate.

That hesitation costs her as Marcus comes speeding down the road in his Falcon muscle car and rams straight into her robot's legs. Normally, muscle car or no, a human car would crumple like a tissue paper against the homeworld designed robot but Marcus's cars not normal. During his construction of Vindicator, he had a couple robonoids line his vehicles with material taken from the hull of Peridot's ship to make it even more powerful. Now any other cars in the future that try to ram him, will instead get their cars crumpled. Now though, the only damage that was caused was some dents into the frame of the Falcon, and Peridot's robot sent flying through the air. She squeals at the sudden change of direction she feels as her robot gets sent into the air but she has no chance of orienting herself as she falls onto the power lines, sending a large electrical burst through the robots systems and rendering it unable to move as it lays on the ground in a heap. Marcus meanwhile turns his car to the side and he goes into a large drift before speeding back to the green robot but the pole carrying the power lines falls onto his car before he can get back. "Arh! Damn!" He curses as the large piece of wood stops his car cold, momentarily lifting the back of it into the air before landing roughly. No additional damage is done to the frame but the window cracks and power cables start sparking uncomfortably close.

"Uhhh…" Meanwhile Peridot groans after the tumble she took and looks up through what little she can see through the opening in her cockpit. "Ohh! She gasps and smiles as she spots the communicator barely a foot away from her.

*Shink*

Too bad for her Pearl launches her spear directly at the device. Not on point that she pierces it but in order to send it tumbling away from her. With the others still flying through the air, Amethyst transforms back to normal. "Dog pile!" She shouts as she, Pearl and Garnet fall to the ground directly on top of Peridot. After Garnet puts the Steven down do she and the others start pounding and trying to tear apart the machine housing the green gem.

Peridot however manages to find a way out from the onslaught through the arms of her robot. She slides and crawls through the robots arm until she pops out without getting spotted by the attacking gems and grabs the communicator.

"You're not getting away with it!" Steven was able to spot her and runs after her before grabbing her. "I trusted you! I spend all that time bonding and hoping and caring about you!" He struggles with her.

"Steven!" Marcus calls out his brother's name and having enough of being trapped, kicks out the passenger window and jumps through the new opening.

"You don't get it either! This is your whole prooobleeem! Your emotions rule out reason! I will do what has to be done!" She replies back defiantly to him and with a twist, the communicator activates.

"Wh—" Steven mutters in surprise at the device activating.

"Steven." Marcus warns as he comes up next to the kid and they both stare at the rapidly floating device. "We need to go." He quickly reaches down and picks his brother up and they go back to the others who now spot the scene.

"She'll sort this out." Peridot giggles at the idea of finally being able to speak to her Diamond. Not wanting to be found out, the Crystal gems all hide behind the remains of Peridot's robot as the communicator opens up a hologram as Peridot gets manically excited.

Another pearl appears on the screen in a firm, dignified and professional manner. "This is the Yellow Diamond control room." She declares.

"Is that another pearl?" Amethyst asks.

"Who is she?" Steven asks their pearl right next to him.

"Ugh, not all pearls know each other Steven." She grumbles, insulted to having be placed with someone who looks so… animatronic.

"Shhh. I wanna listen." Marcus shuts them up to focus on the conversation.

"Who authorized you to make this call?" The Yellow Pearl requests firmly of Peridot.

"No one, b-b-but it's an emergency!"

"That's no excuse to use the direct diamond communication channel."

"Pearl." A new voice sounds from off the communicators screen.

Yellow Pearl tenses up at being called by this other gem considerably. _'Whoever she is, she must be important.'_ Marcus thinks from the pearls reaction. "Yes, my Diamond?" She quietly asks.

"Why is there someone on the Diamond line?" The new voice, now a diamond, asks of her.

"I don't know." She answers and gestures to our screen. "I was just about to tell her that—"

"I'll take it from here." She lazily says and grabs the screen on her end and brings it up to her face.

For the first time in a long time, the veteran Crystal gems see the face of a long forgotten to them Yellow Diamond. To Steven and Marcus, this is the first time they've seen a real Diamond, with the latter shaking a little.

"Is that…"

"Yellow…"

"Diamond." Amethyst, then Pearl, and finally Garnet finish the sentence, confirming the tall presigous gems identity.

"Oh my god." Marcus breathes in awe. Even from just a screen, from far away, and just barely meeting her, but he can still feel the power that radiates from her. The fact that she had to pick the device up so high shows just how tall and powerful her normal state is, even sitting.

"My diamond! Peridot, reporting in." Peridot says and crosses her arms into the diamond formation as some sort of salute.

"… Which peridot?" Yellow Diamond lazily asks, not bothering to turn fully to Peridot and only glancing at her from the side while fiddling with another console out of the screens view.

She hesitates for a second before composing herself. "F- Facet-2-F-5-L, Cut-5-X-G. I'm sorry to contact you this way, but all other forms of communication have been destroyed and—"

A simple hand gesture from Yellow Diamond interrupts her. "This says you're behind schedule on your mission to…" She closely at the other screen before what looks like a special interest. "How is… the Earth?" She asks.

"It's… full of life."

"Organic life… and where is the Jasper I assigned you? And why aren't you calling from the ship?" She demands.

"The ship was destroyed." Peridot answers.

"By whom?" At the question, the gems all tense up at the idea of being told directly to a Diamond scares them.

"I-I-I-It was destroyed by…" Peridot begins to say but hesitates as she gazes back to Steven, then Marcus. "No one!" This surprises everyone. "There was… an accident… while we were… landing?" She finishes saying her answer but it ends in more of an unsure question. Marcus can't help but shake his head at how bad that line was.

Yellow Diamond sighs at the news. "I'll inform your manager of your incompetence." Peridot deflates at the answer. "And what is the status of The Cluster?"

"The Cluster… will emerge shortly."

"Good. We'll finally get some use out of that miserable planet… Thank you for your report, Peridot. There'll be a ship heading to your location to take you to your next assignment." She lazily answers and goes to terminate the call.

"Wait!" She stops at the green gems voice. "I-I wouldn't have called to waste your time with a report."

"You already have." Yellow Diamond states, clearly annoyed.

"No, I mean… the reason I called… the real reason is… I believe we should terminate The Cluster."

"… Why?" She's still not even looking at Peridot directly, only keeping one eye on her.

"The organic ecosystem creates resources unique to this world, we can't sacrifice all that potential just for one geo-weapon!" Peridot tries to reason. "I'd like to tell you some plans I came up with to utilize the planet without disrupting the local—"

"I've heard enough! I don't care about potential and resources." Yellow Diamonds states firmly without a care.

"What?!" Peridot is shocked at the news.

"I want my Cluster, and I want that planet to die. Just make that happen."

"No!"

Yellow Pearl gasps at the defiance that Peridot shows her Diamond. Said Diamond doesn't look happy at all about being denied. "Are you questioning my authority?!" She finally looks at Peridot directly finally but you know it's bad when she does.

"I'm... questioning your objectivity! My Diamond." Peridot quickly tries to salvage her unintentional insult but fails.

"Well!" Yellow blanches at the green gem, acting like she just spit in her face.

"You are out of line." Yellow Diamond shouts, her voice starting to get higher as the conversation starts to draw on.

"I just think—"

"I'm not interested in the puny thoughts of a Peridot –"

"But—"

"You have disrespected this channel and my time with your presence and you would do well to—

"But—"

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Peridot tenses and cowers at the command but does so. Yellow Diamond stands up from her chair and it accentuates just how tall and powerful she is. "You have failed at every stage of this mission. Your only chance to redeem yourself is to obey this simple order. You are to leave the Cluster to grow. It will tear apart the Earth, and I will take immense satisfaction in erasing that hideous rock off of our star maps. Is that clear?!" She demands with such fevor and willingness to let it happen so firmly. The demand itself makes Marcus's hand clench and mentally curse her to oblivion.

"I won't do it!" Peridot outright defies her, much to the delight, surprise and smiles from the ones behind the broken Peribot. "I can tell you with certainty that there are things on this planet worth protecting!" She states firmly and with such conviction that surprises them.

"What do you know about the Earth?" Yellow Diamonds asks her loudly.

"Apparently more than YOU! You... CLOD!" And the final nail in Peridot's coffin is set. Yellow Diamond for her part in being insulted so much by, to her, a subordinate scrunches her face hard in anger as she glares at Peridot through the screen. "Uuh! Peridot, out!" With one final Diamond salute, she quickly takes the initiative and shuts off the communicator before anymore can be said.

Everyone comes out from behind the broken robot and runs up to congratulate the green gem, who at this point looks like she's about to throw up and pass out.

"That was AMAZING!" Steven yells excitedly.

"Hoooollllly crap." Marcus says in awe at the defiance she exhibited.

"I can't believe I just did that…" Peridot groans.

"I was so wrong about being so wrong about you!"

"I can't believe I just did that…" She repeats.

"You thought you could change her mind." Garnet points out her action, which obviously failed.

"Yellow D got torn down by the 'Peri-dactyl'!" Amethyst excitedly yells while giving Peridot a new nickname.

She doesn't respond to the compliment and instead sighs before handing the communicator to Pearl. "Can one of you take this?"

"Why?" Pearl asks as she takes it.

"Because it can be remotely detonated." Peridot explains simply.

Just as she says that, the device starts to glow red and everyone starts freaking out and panicking, except Peridot who lies on the ground and curls up into a ball.

"How do we stop it?!"

"Just get rid of it!"

"Here Amethyst." Pearl quickly passes the ticking explosive to the purple gem.

"What am I supposed to do with it?!" She asks loudly and very confused before passing it to Marcus. "Here!"

"Wha- What can I do?!" He asks loudly and in a panic.

"I don't know! Disable it or something!"

"Uhh- wha- bu- I don't- Crap!" He stumbles over his words over and over again as he looks at the bomb in his hands and back to the others who are just as clueless as he is. He steps a little away from them as he starts trying to press buttons and twist parts to somehow get it open or disable the detonation function. As the beeping gets faster, higher levels of panic and sweat starts to accumulate on the hybrid. "Uhhhhhh… Ahhhh!" He screams as it gets really close now. "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO—"

*Wump*

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… Oh… Apparently the… explosive countdown… halts when aaaaa… call is… um… activated." He hesitantly stutters while glancing from the others to his side, and to Yellow Diamond right in front of him. True to what he is saying, the right twist of the device was able to activate it, resulting in him now staring at Yellow Diamond and she back to him with a surprise look on her face.

"What is this?! Who are you?! Where is the Peridot that was using that communicator before?!" Yellow Diamond demands and yells. Marcus looks at her before glancing at the others who all have some tense and scared looks about them. Yellow Diamond in her still angry state glares angrily at him before realizing what he is. "Oh, I see now. You're a human. Ugh! Of course you must be the organic life she was talking about. Still can't believe you actually thrived. Just look…" As Yellow Diamond proceeds to insult his species, Marcus's confused stare turns to that of annoyance and then anger as she basically insults him right to his face. His teeth grit and his free hand clenches tightly before he's had enough.

"Shut… up." He orders in a deep voice.

That shuts her up as she looks taken back by the order from a lowly being to her. "Wha… how dare—"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" He yells now. Pearl takes the initiative and covers Steven's ears before he can hear the worst of it. Everyone looks at him surprised, even Peridot who's now come out of her depressed state after hearing Yellow Diamond talk again. "…You sit there… talking and insulting me and my species, and you expect me to stand here and take the crap that comes from your mouth? No. You have no power over me and my kind and will not speak about my species like that." He threatens in a deep dark voice.

Yellow Pearl's mouth is agape in surprise and horror at the words he tells her without a care. Yellow Diamond is absolutely livid at the lack of respect he shows her and glares angrily at him. "Do you know who I am?" She slowly asks as she stands to her full height. The action is meant to be an intimidation factor but he doesn't show being scared in the least bit.

Marcus stands straighter at the question as he stares at her before giving a straight face. "You are Yellow Diamond. The highest level of authority in the gem hierarchy with the Great Diamond Authority. You command many gems and soldiers at your disposal… and I don't care." He states firmly and fiercely at her. She looks taken back by that information he has about her but turns back to anger.

"I could destroy your planet with a simple command! You don't want to anger me you insignificant being." She growls at him.

"He he he." His chuckling angers her further along with the smile. "You already I have." He answers before clenching his hands tightly. "You threaten my species… threaten my friends, my family, the people I care about, MY PLAAAANET!" He yells at her through the screen and then closes his eyes as he hunches over. "No one does that. Especially not someone who hides behind a screen and sends others to do her dirty work and didn't bother to send help unless they felt the need to report back." He spits out the last sentence as his eyes clench shut even tighter. His head and body begins shaking with silent building hatred at how casual and at ease the gem in front of him wishes his planet gone. After a few seconds, the shaking stops and his body goes at ease. He relaxes finally and stands straight up with his eyes still closed. He takes in a deep breath before letting it out in one long breath. He looks back directly at the screen and opens his eyes.

Yellow Pearl shakes in fear at the red eyes staring and Yellow Diamond is surprised at the change.

' _You will not leave… I'm in control.'_ Marcus thinks as he death glares at the Diamond. "Everyone has their demons Yellow Diamond… and it looks like you just made one today." He says with a sinister smile on his face. "This is Earth… signing off… You clod." He shuts off the communicator as Yellow Diamond is about to retort.

The beeping resumes at an incredibly high rate. "Marcus!"

*Bo—*

*Woomp*

Just as the device detonates, Marcus manages to bubble the device before it can kill them all. The flash of light goes off for maybe a millisecond but the harmful blast becomes contained within the bubble the hybrid makes. The others who were crouched and ready to take the force of the explosion get back up to notice him holding a green bubble in-between his hands. The gems start walking closer to Marcus as he sounds like he's struggling with the ball shaking. In the center of the bubble the communicator is completely gone, replaced by what looks like a bright star in the center. "Marcus?" Garnet asks as she steps up to him.

"Man, so this is what it looks like to hold a literal explosion in your hands." He strains to say as beads of sweat start rolling down his form. The sole act of trying to keep the explosive in one strains himself to his absolute limits. Very carefully he turns to the side and looks at her, his eyes having already returned back to normal and giving her a strained smile. "You mind?"

"Not at all." Garnet answers with a smile and forms her gauntlets. Holding his arms out, he gives Garnet the room to hit. With a fierce cry, she punches the green bubble right out of hands and straight into the sky.

For his part the hybrid keeps his hands pointed to the bubble as it sails away straight into the sky, hoping to keep it in one piece as long as possible to avoid whatever damage the explosion might cause to the landscape. It takes what little energy he can muster as it gets farther and farther away until it finally ruptures.

In a massive explosion that lights up the entire sky in what some could claim to be a mini-nova. With the strain no longer a part of him, Marcus sits down and takes deep breaths. "Uhhh, uhhh, uhhh… oh man, that sucked." He grunts and wipes his forehead with his forearm. "Please don't make me do that again."

"No problem." Pearl reassures him with a pat on his shoulders before glancing to the side. "So long as Peridot doesn't bring anymore remotely exploding devices, you're good." He has a look of relief on his face.

"Uhhhhhh." Peridot groans as she lays on the ground, depressed again at being reminded of how this happened. "I thought I could reason with her…" She moans as she stares into the sky.

"Yeah. You really made her mad." Amethyst says since it really was her that made Yellow Diamond angry in the first place. When Marcus was talking it was more so threatening to him rather than unbridled anger.

"And then you insulted her to her face." Pearl adds with a smirk.

"Do you know what this means?!" Steven excitedly says as he comes up to her.

At the thought, Peridot curls up on her side with a thousand yard stare. "That I'm a traitor to my home world?" She asks to confirm.

"You're a Crystal Gem!" Steven opts to say instead and hugs her. Technically what she said was true but that's not what their focusing on.

"Whether you like it or not." With that last statement from Garnet, Peridot falls into an even deeper depressed state, moaning all the while over and over again.

As the others crowd around her to congratulate her more on her standing up to Yellow Diamond, Marcus stares at the sad gem with a thoughtful look on his face. "Hmmm."

"You okay?" Pearl asks, still next to him to make sure he's alright after his near collapse.

"Yeah, yea I'm good. Just…" He pauses as he looks at the gem that could have ratted them all out to the Diamond Authority and rendered their existence a living hell but instead didn't. Even going as far as to insult their leadership and ending her loyalty to Homeworld. "Thinking about something." He answers.

' _I can't let her sacrifice go unrewarded.'_ Marcus thinks as he goes to stand.

* * *

 **Okay I'd say this was alright. It looks like Marcus may have just made Yellow Diamond angry along with Peridot. Guess we'll see how that pans out in the future for him. It looks like that despite having plenty of misgivings with his kind, having someone else be such at ease with wiping out an entire planet for a statement or her own pleasure still irks the hell out of him.**

 **Anyway, think I am going to do a train of chapters again but keep in mind that school is starting again so my time may be hindered just a bit as I work on my classes. However there is another bit of information that I want you all to know for certain. For my RWBY story 'A Grimm's Handler' I have a poll set up at the top of my profile page on who the love interest should be for my OC in that story if any of you all didn't know and would like to contribute in the choosing. Guests would have to choose by leaving a review on that story, not this one, and members could choose in the poll. I at first thought anyone could choose but I guess I was wrong. Go figure. There's also something else I've decided that I want to tell you all.**

 **I've decided to go ahead and start a new story: A Star Wars: The Clone Wars OC story.**

 **That's right. For those of you not following me directly and haven't gotten the notification, if you go to my stories list you'll find that the story is already up and ready to read the prologue. There's not much more than the prologue chapter right now but I already have plenty of ideas on how to go about the series and for right now just want to see how people take to it.**

 **Also if some of you are curious as to the pairing option for Marcus, don't worry. I got that covered.**

 **Thank you all for reading, have a great day everyone and as always, have fun reading.**


	58. 56 Log Date: 7-16-2

"Log Date 7 16 2…" Peridot calmly speaks into her tape recorder. "I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST DID THAT!" Then she goes ballistic hysterical at the memory of what she did to Yellow Diamond. "I disobeyed my orders and went against Yellow Diamond's wishes! I'm a traitorous clod! I never want to think about what I've done again!" She tells herself before rewinding her tape recorder.

"I'm a traitorous clod!"

"Yehahaha! And I called Yellow Diamond a clod right to her face!" She proclaims delightfully. Then she becomes very devastated as she drops to her knees with Steven watching nearby. "I called Yellow Diamond a clod… right to her face." She whimpers.

"Uh, Peridot? Are you gonna be okay?" Steven asks her. Instead of replying first, she rewinds the tape a few more times.

"I'm a traitorous clod…! Traitorous clod…!"

"No!" Peridot turns back to Steven with what amounts to be a deranged smile on her face.

"It's all gonna work out. You're with us now." He tries to make her feel better but it doesn't work as well as one would think.

"You don't understand!" She grabs him. "I'm protecting a planet I was once trying to destroy! I used to follow every order. Every rule. Now I'm a traitor. A rebel! A Crystal Gemmmmmmm! Hmhmh." It evolves into chuckling as her eyes turn to stars. She rewinds the tape over and over again.

"Clod! Clod! Clod!"

"Well… that tape recorder seems to be helping."

"No it's not!" She disagrees before tossing it away. "It's a chronicle of my descent into madness!" She yells, unbeknownst to her that the recorder hits Garnet in the face, who doesn't react to it at all and grabs it before it hits the ground.

"You dropped this." She says as she walks up to them with the recorder in hand.

"Get it away from me." Peridot crawls on the floor behind Garnet. "Give it to Steven; return madness to its source!" She demands.

"Are you sure you don't want it?" He asks. Garnet shrugs and drops the recorder into his hands.

"Whatever, it's yours now." Peridot grabs her face and goes down a road of crazy. "Yours, not mine, not mine! Yours! Yours!" She hysterically yells.

Garnet puts a hand on her shoulder to calm the green gem down. "Let's calm down."

"… Okay." After a moment, Peridot does and lets Garnet pick her up. "So am I gonna have to wear a star?" Garnet proceeds to carry Peridot away. "Where am I gonna put the star?!" She demands.

"MmmMmm." Garnet shrugs as they go outside. "Hey have you seen Marcus?"

"I don't know. After last night I think he mentioned something about fixing his transportation vehicle." Peridot grumbles as she's carried. Once they get outside, the fusions puts her down and looks in the direction of their home.

"Hmmmm."

* * *

After last night, preparation is going to be the key for future engagements. One of those is going to involve Peridot and after what she did, she basically branded herself a traitor to Homeworld.

I can't let just a simple title and gesture of being a Crystal Gem be the only reward she gets for joining us. I need to get her something concrete. Something for her… for the both of us.

With a sigh, I put down the etching tools I am using. I look at the time and notice that its well into the next day. I've been working all night but the work I've put into her gift has come along beautifully. I smile at the creation before going back to working on it.

* * *

"Log Date 7 12 2. Today marks the 30th earth rotation since my... capture." Peridot was working on a piece of the drill, complete with welding and goggles to work the bright tool.

"Happy one month canniversary!" Steven happily pronounces while holding paint cans with flames painted onto their sides to the working gem.

"Cylinders?" She asks in confusion at the objects as she folds open her goggles.

"They're stilts." He clarifies. "You tie them on to your feet and then make you taller. I tried to spruce them up a bit. I dunno what it is about flames, but they just make everything cooler."

"Why are you giving me these?"

"Because I want you to feel nice! That's what gifts are for. You give them to your friends to show you care. And they go 'wow, thanks!'" He explains to her as best he can.

"Hef! As if I'd stoop so low as to tie earth trash to my body. Leave me! Go-go-go-go!" She shoos him away but still keeps the present. "And WOW THANKS!" It is unclear if she was actually serious about it but still follows the instructions that Steven mentions.

* * *

*Click*

With the saying etched and ready to go, I set the piece into place before getting started on the rest of it. I have to make sure this thing can survive anything, be able to work in any kind of condition so as to it will not be destroyed or break so easily. This is something that I want to ensure that she won't have any trouble in using or maintaining it. I place it in the briefcase before grabbing the rest of the supplies.

* * *

"Log Date 7 13 2. Progress on the cluster drill is going optimal. Surprisingly, though I have a few complaints on the work ethic of—"

"Heyyyy!" Amethyst suddenly appears behind Peridot and laughs as she's turned into Lion. Peridot stiffens, startled by Amethyst.

"Amethyst, really, this is no time to be fooling around." Pearl scolds as she takes a moment from the welding.

"Please, we can't afford to mess this up." Marcus adds from his position lying on the ground, working on a lower piece on the machine.

"Aww… Come on you two, I'm just tryin'ta lion the mood… Lion the mood." Amethyst repeats her joke after a pause.

"Booooooo." Marcus chucks a bolt at the shapeshifted gem, which it bops her on the head. Pearl meanwhile closes her welding mask and mumbles something. Probably laughing but no one knows for sure, that's why she covered her face.

"Do you always use shapeshifting like this?" Peridot asks her after coming down from her startled state.

"You mean to be really cool?" Next she shapeshifts into Peridot. "Pretty much."

"But it's such a significant use of energy compared to the output."

"Significant use of energy compared to the output." They both say at the same time with Amethyst just lagging behind.

"What was that?"

"I've been practicing my 'Peri' phrasing, pretty impressive in my opinion but it's hard to beat the original." Amethyst compliments the green gem.

In turn, said gem blushes and lightly chuckles. "Hehehe. So, can you shift into anything?" She asks.

"Sure." The purple gem changes back. "Got a request?"

Later, Amethyst is running around like a chicken… as a chicken.

"Bawck bawck! I'm a chicken! Ahahaha!" She laughs as she runs around with everyone watching.

"Hahahaha! I get the joke now!" Peridot laughs.

"Heh, yes well at least she isn't lion around anymore, heheh." Pearl tries to make a joke.

"Ahhhahaha…" Peridot forces her laugh out which is very evident. Pearl looks to see Marcus looking elsewhere beside her.

"Marcus?"

"Oh! Huh. Yeah it was uhhhh…" He backs up a little as he gets closer to the machine and lays his arm on some of the components.

*Crink*

"Ohhhhh would you look at that. It's broken." He tells them in vague surprise as he put just a little bit too much force and some wires and tubes tear off. "Let me just do this and that…" His sentence moves to more incoherent mumbling noises as he focuses on the broken pieces. Pearl scowls at him with pursed lips as he focuses very intently on the broken pieces that just happened to come off when he leaned on them.

"Pearl really tries for some reason and I can appreciate that, Marcus tries not to raise to ire with anyone, and does a superb job at it, Amethyst's company is entertaining as well, but the fused one… eludes me."

The next moment later at night has them all working more on the drill closer to night time.

"Okay, we can add more support as we go, but for now we just have to pick it up and put it on top." Pearl says.

"No sweat." Amethyst shapeshifts into the Purple Puma. "Let's do this!"

"You've got the right idea but we might wanna be a bit more careful." Pearl proposes instead.

Amethyst shapeshifts back, getting what the pale gem means. "Gotcha. Ahem, shall we?" And with a few simple steps, the two fuse into Opal. Peridot freaks out at the fusion and Opal stretches before getting ready.

"Opal."

"Marcus." She greets him back as he walks by with an armful of components in a crate before she puts the drill on the placement board.

* * *

The main gift is ready to present but I need other pieces to go along with it.

I head back up to my main home and start going through my collection of books. Ever since I made my home, I've taken to purchasing and collecting a sort of library for myself of various books that might be able to help me in the future, interest me, or expand my knowledge in general. I know a lot already because of my gem side but I still always have more to learn.

"Let's see…" I mumble as I glide my hand along the spines of the books. "Law books, metal workings, some cook books, 'Cask of Amontillado', 'The art of war' by Sun Tzu, subterfuge, 'The biography of General Terrance Da Nella', herbology … ah-ha!" I shout triumphantly as I grab something that'll work more for Peridot than me since I've memorized it to near perfect. "Now I just need some instructions for that specific piece…" I mumble as I go back down.

* * *

"Log Date 7 14 2. It would seem that the hybrid, the Marcus, or Marcus as he prefers to be called, just like with… Steven, has allowed me to watch him have a more thorough look at the weapons he carries."

Marcus is sitting on the back of his truck, legs dangling off the back as he polishes the barrel of the Barrett .50 cal. he brought to the barn. The rag he uses is stained with repeated uses of it but works nonetheless. "What are you doing?" He looks up at the side to see Peridot hanging over the edge, peering almost menacingly at him with just her eyes. They both stare at each other for a second before he answers.

"I'm cleaning it."

"… Why?"

"So it doesn't break or get worn down so easily."

"And you have to completely take it all apart?" She pulls herself up until she's standing on the side and gestures to the parts splayed along the back. Along with are his Beretta's and the Anaconda who are soon to be dismantled too and cleaned. "Seems like a lot of work. Why don't you just get a new one when it breaks?" She asks likes it's the most obvious thing to do.

"Because unlike you, who was part of a powerful military army and had near limitless supply of resources that could easily replace anything you use that broke or no longer served a purpose, I am not as well-supplied… at least until recently." He mumbles the last part to himself as he remembers his agreement with the Iron Kings. True if he needed any new weapons or gear he could call them for some but he doesn't need to and will try to prevent himself from needing to in the future. He shakes his head of the thoughts and goes back to cleaning. "Either way, their sometimes is a sense of… bond one could form when it comes to the weapons they use." He lays the barrel down after its cleaned and picks up his Beretta's. "The weapons I use have kept me alive and safe through many tough times and to make sure they continue to do well in aiding and helping me, I clean, fix, repair and make sure there in tip top conditions to make sure they work to the best of their ability's. These ones right here have been with me since I first went out on my own and repaired them many times, including upgrading them too." He explains and stares in intently at the guns. "You know, I think I have some more ideas to upgrade them. Hopefully after we deal with the Cluster I can get to work, among other things." He places them down and looks fully at her. "Didn't you ever feel close to your limb enhancers?"

"Phe!" She scoffs. "Why should I? Their just tools. Tools that all are good for in giving us leverage to make it easier to fix and accomplish certain task. Why if I had my limb enhancers still, I could have scanned what we have of the drill already, calculated what we have on site, what we have, and have everything done in half the time!" She boasts happily before getting a cross look on her face. "But… as it stands I no longer have my limb enhancers. Just the one gravity connecter Steven gave me and I can't even access or use that because I don't have my control gauntlets to access it and make it connect to me." She starts getting angry. "Now I am completely useless in this small diminutive form that doesn't make me any taller than Steven!" She begins getting angry and bouncing. "Why did you all have to go ahead and destroy my- Whoa whoa whoooooaa!" She loses her balance and starts falling.

Marcus reaches forward and grabs her flailing arm before she falls off. Now she's standing at an angle off the truck with Marcus holding on. She stares into the sky for a second before glancing towards the hybrid. With a jerk, he pulls her back into the truck and allows her to sit down next to him. "You good?"

She doesn't make direct eye contact with him and looks away. "… Yes… thank you."

"No problem." He answers before he starts putting together the armor-piercing rifle. Peridot continues to look away but as the first couple sounds of machinery being slid, snapped and put together does she turn slightly so she can glance at the hybrid work. At first it's her simply glancing at him from the corner of her eyes but as the weapon starts to take shape as he expertly works does she become enraptured with it. She's fully staring now as he sets the barrel into place along with its muzzle. Next he slides on the scope and makes a quick check of the attachment before grabbing an empty magazine. He slides it in easily until its set with a satisfying click.

*Cha-chick*

With a pull of the bolt handle it shows how it works. Shouldering the weapon he aims it off into the distance.

*Click*

He pulls the trigger and it fires, but without a round it's harmless. Just gives a click in response. Pulling the weapon up he aims to the sky before glancing to the green gem next to him. After hearing her rant about her lost her limb enhancers, Marcus feels just a little pang of regret mixed with guilt in his heart at the fact he still has them in his base. They were pretty beat up when Amethyst gave them to him and it looked like it would take some work to get them working properly but still. "I can teach you you know."

"Huh?" She asks in confusion.

"Human firearms." He clarifies before laying the weapon down on his lap. "You've shown me you have some knowledge of our guns with what little information I've given you overtime. If you want, I can probably teach you a bit more about human weapons to make you just a bit more… proficient with them. In return, maybe you can teach me more about Homeworld tech." He proposes to her. So far Peridot has proven to be quite an asset and helpful to them in certain times, even starting to form bonds with the Crystal gems that could very well be lasting. To hopefully make things go more smoothly for them all, an exchange of lessons between the two could be helpful. Peridot stares at him curiously for a bit, contemplating the answer she should give him to his proposition. She looks down to think more so Marcus turns around to lay his rifle along the side of the truck. Turning back, he notices Peridot staring intently at the revolver. "You okay?"

"Gah! I wasn't doing anything!" She yelps suddenly and jumps off the truck before heading off. "I'm gonna go work on the drill!"

He stares at the retreating gem for a bit as goes. He purses his lips in thought. _'Guess she wasn't ready yet.'_ He thinks before reaching for another gun. His hand stops as it hovers over the Colt Anaconda for a second. He hesitates before picking it up and staring at it for a bit. His view switches to where Peridot is as she goes. "Hmmmm."

* * *

"Hopefully this'll work out for the best." I mutter and finish placing everything inside the case. Once everything is securely set and ready, I close it up and get ready go.

I spent the entire night into the next day down here working on her gift. I have her limb enhancers still and after the move she did to Yellow Diamond, this is something I have to do at least.

Getting into my car, which all the damage is repaired, I hit the button and the large ground gate opens from my base for me to head back to the barn. Once I make it out and it closes, all the lights turn and shut off.

* * *

"Okay, go!"

"Log date…" Steven gasps as he hears Garnet on the tape now. "Seven fifteen two."

"No, you say it seven one five two. Ugh! Log date 7 15 2. I have attempted a fusion with the fusion Garnet. I had hoped to gain a better understanding of fusion. Instead, I got a better understanding of Garnet." Peridot on the recorder says and is about to stop but is halted by Garnet.

"Wait, keep it on a moment. Steven, you probably shouldn't have listened to Peridot's logs, but I know your curiosity comes from a place of caring. You should give the recorder back to her now. She's going to want to keep it." Garnet, using her future vision, explains to Steven as he listens.

"Wait, what?" Peridot asks in confusion but before anymore could be said he stops the recorder. Just at that moment, the two that were on the recorder come back into the barn.

"Here, Peridot. Take this back." He gives her her tape recorder back.

"Wow. Thanks." She accepts the item back, despite going crazy about it before. Garnet and Steven both give her a thumbs up in turn at how good she seems to be now. Peridot blushes and follows suit like them.

"Nice." Garnet comments with a smile. Next they hear the engine of a car pulling up. "Oh, Marcus must be back."

"Yay!" Steven happily yells with his arms raised up and jogs outside.

"Joy." Peridot sarcastically says and they go outside to meet him. What greets them is the muscle car parked with the hybrid standing and leaning against the passenger side door of his car that's aimed at them as they come out.

He wears a pair of sunglasses as he stares straight ahead of him but as soon as he spots Peridot, he pushes himself off and gets her attention. "Peridot, let's take a ride." He suggests they do.

All three of them who walked out of the barn look at each other in confusion at the sudden demand. "Uhhh, what?" Peridot asks in confusion at him. He doesn't respond, instead he simply pushes himself off his car and opens the passenger door and gestures with his head for her to go in. "Uhhh okay." She agrees after a moment of confusion but agrees nonetheless. As she begins walking over to him, she glances back to Steven and Garnet to see looks of confusion on them as well as they shrug. Once she gets close enough, he keeps the door open for her as she clambers on in and seats herself before he closes the door. He wastes no time in walking around the vehicle to get at the driver seat.

"We'll be back later." He tells the two spectators without a glance towards them but loud enough for them to hear. Without another word, he climbs in and starts the car. Peridot just barely glances out the window to Garnet and Steven before the car starts driving away.

They both watch the car drive away from the barn until it becomes a speck. "What do you think they're going to do?" Steven asks the fusion.

"Mmm-mm." Garnet shrugs and walks back inside. Steven stares in the direction they left for a bit longer before going inside too.

Later with Peridot inside the car, she start to become nervous as the car ride draws on for quite awhile in complete silence, coupled with the drivers complete focus on the driving at hand with a stoic neutral expression makes Peridot silently dreading her action. _'What does he want with me? Why now of all times does he want to be alone with me? Is it because of Yellow Diamond? Did her words about him and this world make him so angry that if he can't get at her he's going to take it out on me?! Oh my clod! What is he going to do to me?! What type of horrific tortures will he inflict on me? What will he do to my gem when I'm forced to reform?! Oh maybe I can beg for his forgiveness and offer to do something for him. What can I do to make everything better?! WHAT IF HE TRANSFORMS INTO THAT MONSTER?! I can't reason with that thing! I'll be torn to shreds if he sick's it on me! What am I supposed to do…?!'_ Peridot's thoughts revolve around this particular thought pattern throughout the drive, ranging from facial expressions of being scared, worried, relief, horrified and so on. By the time Marcus makes it to his destination, he shuts off the car and goes to talk to his passenger but he's confused as she's now huddled tightly in her seat, her right arm wrapped around her body with her left on her face and head. She's also shaking like a leaf in heavy wind with a thousand yard stare in her eyes.

* * *

"Peridot?"

"GAH! Please don't hurt me?!" She yells in fright after her name is called, bringing her from her fear stricken thoughts. I give her a look of complete confusion and tilt my head to the side.

"Wha? No. I just wanted to give you something." I clarify and reach into the back seat.

"Don't shatter me!" She begs loudly as she brings her hands out towards in an attempt to stop me from hurting her, I think, along with her eyes closed. When something doesn't happen to her, she cracks an eye open to see me holding one of my better equipped, most secure and durable case I have in front of her.

"I got you a present."

She blinks a few times before relaxing and giving me a confused look. "A… present?" She asks in confusion.

"Yeah, it's a gift."

"Oh, a gift." She gets a look of realization on her face as she now knows she's not going to be shattered. "Like Steven's… stilts?" She asks.

"Stilts...? Oh! Kind of." I answer after I remember the painted paint cans that Steven got her for her one month canniversary. "Here. Follow me and I'll show you." I tell her and get out of my car. Moving to the front, I give her a bit to somehow be able to properly open the door without lowering the window, or destroying it, and meeting me in front of my car where I am sitting on the hood. _'It still never ceases to amaze me so much that for her being so smart, she still has trouble with earth tech.'_

"Where are we?" She asks, gesturing to the item in my lap as she takes a seat next to me.

Looking up with a smile, I take in the view around us. "What you don't remember coming here to kidnap Steven?" I ask sarcastically. She has a look of confusion before taking another look around and notices that we are indeed back at the cliff where the temple is and my home. "This place right here," I point to the house, "That's my home where I live and work on a lot of different stuff from time to time. It's also where I store stuff I may need in the future, hence your old escape pod and the majority of the material used in the drill." I tell her. I positioned my car so it's close to the edge of the cliff and pointed out towards the ocean, that way we have a pretty cool view of the landscape for the conversation we are going to have. "It's also where I worked on your gift here." I say as I place the black case between us.

Her focus shifts to that of the item I have for her. "What is it?" She asks enraptured by what it might be.

I take a moment to stare at the case for a bit, the implications of what I am about to give her start to make it well-known in my mind but it has to be done. _'It has to be.'_ With a sigh, I plug in the code for the lock with it unlocked, I open it revealing the base stuff on the surface. "This is some stuff you'll need."

"Oh!" She reaches in and grabs two of the three things inside it. "Huh?" She asks in confusion at the book. "A complete guide to gun cleaning and repairing?" She reads the title before looking at the folded up leather pouch and opening it to reveal an assortment of brushes, screwdrivers, and a variety of other tools needed to clean weapons. "What is this?"

"Those are what you'll use to maintain your real gift."

"Huh?" She asks before I reach in and grab the main item in there that was covered by the book.

I pull out the ornate wooden case with gold trimmings. Varnished to protect it from minor damages, I stare at it for a long time before handing it to her. "Here." She looks down at it for a second before taking it and looking curiously at it. "Open it."

The amount of change that goes through her face as she opens the wooden box is priceless. The confused look at her turns to complete awe and surprise, stars even appear in her eyes as she stares at its contents.

My, now hers, Colt Anaconda sits firmly inside its place in the red velvet lined interior of the box. I heavily modified the revolver to take near any kind of damage now from the environment and battle it might get into. The main frame part of the gun shines brightly with the silver steel gleaming but it's not the only color that shines. The barrel of the gun that I had removed and instead had the material replaced with none other than the same material that was used in Peridot's ship. After analyzing the material for earlier uses awhile back, I found the material for the hull of the ship is able to withstand such powerful and massive bouts of heat and fire. That much is obvious since it's a space faring vessel and needs to cut through the atmosphere of most planets so it definitely needs to take superb amounts of high temperatures. That being said the green swirling material of light and dark green now makes up the barrel, contrasting the silver colored steel, and assures without a doubt that there will be no heat damage or metal melting from continuous damage, something I should adapt to my other weapons later on. The barrel also has vents at the end pointed at the sides to lessen the blow back from when the bullets leave the barrel of the gun.

The grip handle of the gun is a black soft overmolded synthetic rubber that's way durable, absorbs recoil and gives a somewhat comfortable feel compared to what one would expect from hard materials. The sights of the weapon also are equipped with night sights so when its in the dead of night or extremely dark, they will glow green to allow the user to properly aim and place your target.

All in all, I am quite proud of this weapon.

The ammo is still the same .44 magnum caliber but I also decided to give Peridot all the speedloaders I had to go with it. Just below where the weapons lies, six divots contain each of the speedloaders with their bullet payloads, cleaned and ready to be easily added to the chambers in a moment's notice. A small special screwdriver is inside as well to allow for small tweaks to the sights and allow for compensating for Peridot's aim. On the inside of the lid is a small booklet I made and printed out that gives exact specifications on how to properly fix and maintain this particular revolver for its new owner. Next to the booklet is an adjustable holster strapped inside that Peridot can use to strap to practically any other part of her body and holster her weapon.

"Is… is this…?" She stares in awe at the newly designed but oddly to her familiar weapon.

"It is." I answer with a nod.

"And your just… giving it to me?" She asks confused.

I give her a close eyed smile and nod. "I am, with some upgrades."

She looks between the weapon and I for a few times before laying it on her lap. "Why?"

"Peridot… for the longest time when you've been with us, in the back of my mind I've always had some reservations that just maybe you'd still be loyal to Homoeworld. I had thoughts at times that maybe you'd betray us or take off without a look back at us." I explain as I stare into the waters. Peridot looks down depressed as she remembers what she did with the communicator. "However," She perks up. "What you did to Yellow Diamond, the back talk, the interruptions, the INSULT right to her face… that took guts not many are ever known for. That proved to me right then and there that you just basically turned your back on the Diamonds… and became an official Crystal Gem." I say the last part looking at her with a smile on my face. "That being said, the others like it that you have the title, but I felt you needed something a bit more… concrete to symbolize your change and willingness to stay." I gesture to the gun. "You've proven to me that you can use the weapon when the need comes to it." She looks nervous at the memory of using the weapon on me but I'm not angry. It was good she did. "It was also awesome of you to give it back to me when you did. This is something that I feel you can do great things with." I tell her as confidently as I can to help boost her emotions. When I left she was pretty bummed out about her actions but she looks to be doing much better now. _'Now… for the other reason.'_ I think depressed before going into a sulked stature. "There's also… something else I'm gonna need you to do… when the time arises." I eerily say, not being able to look at her now.

"What is it?"

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye before I get up and take a few steps towards the cliffs edge. For the longest time I stare out into the ocean with the wind billowing against me. "You know, about the thing that lives inside me. What I can… become." I don't need to see but I know she nods. "When it comes out I can't control it. It'll go after whoever it feels like and won't stop until enough damage is done to it." I turn around and stare at her with a firm look. "I cannot expect the others to not hold back in doing what is necessary to stop me. That's why I know I can turn to you to do what needs to be done."

"What do you me—" She starts to ask in confusion but it turns to a horrified realization as she remembers the gun in her lap. She looks down at it before looking up at me. I give her just barest and smallest of nods. "But… I can't! We weren't friends then! Now we are! You can't—" I walk up to her and place a hand on her shoulder, quieting her. Next I kneel down, so now I am below her and looking up.

"Peridot, we are friends, thank you for saying that… but the others care about me too much to the point that I worry they'll hesitate. You however, we haven't known each other near as long and have been at odds with each other at times. Because of that, I know that out of everyone here I know that you can be the one to take me down because you've already done it before." I explain to her as best I can. Throughout the whole time I was working on her gift, that thought kept coming back to haunt me and while I don't want to put this burden on her, it's the only option I can fall back to. I can't outright ask the others, god forbid Steven to even do something like that to me. "Peridot…" I grab one of her hands into the both of mine. "I cannot, nor will I ever, wish any harm on my family, friends, and allies. And if that thing gets out I will be powerless to stop it. I NEED you to stop me from hurting everyone I care about. Please… will you stop me from hurting my family?" I sincerely ask her, almost begging. I'm resigned to doing so, should the need arise. And this is a need that I can't take any chances with.

She looks stunned at my pleading tone and action in front of her. Me on my knees in front of her, practically begging at this point for her to shoot me to the point I will be incapacitated and hurt very badly. Her stunned look may also attribute to me giving her this very important job that I can't trust anyone else to. For awhile, the stunned look dissipates to one of silent thinking. Soon, she looks at me with a determined expression and places her other hand on top of mine. "Alright, I'll do it."

Relief flows over my whole body at the answer. "Thank you Peridot. Thank you." I say relieved. After I let go of her hands, we give each other a smile and she picks up her new firearm and inspects it. After admiring it for a bit, she finds something on the side of the barrels that gets her attention.

"What are these scratches?" She says pointing to the inscriptions I etched into both sides of the barrel.

Smiling, I point at the one she's looking at. "That one is a quote I etched into it, for inspiration and remembering." I take the gun and aim out to her right with my left hand. "It reads, _'Patria est, ubi eam'_ in latin. Translated, _'Home is where I make it.'_ Meaning that it doesn't matter where you are or where you live, what home is matters to you." I gesture to her. She smiles at that. As I return the smile, I decide to turn the gun around to show the other etching I made.

As she reads the text, her eyes widen as she is able to read the text clearly. " _'Earth is my home now.'_ Wait, this isn't earth language. I can read this! This is…" She trails off as she realizes what it is.

"It is. After some work, I was able to make out the words said in Homeworld script. I felt it would be… fitting for you."

"Wow…" She says in awe at the text before looking confused. "But shouldn't they say 'you' instead of 'my' or 'I'?" She asks but I can't help but smirk.

"No Peridot it shouldn't… because they are your words…" I hold the guns handle firmly in my right hand before I flip the gun around and hold the handle for her to take it. "If you'll take them." I offer.

She stares at me for a bit before grabbing the guns handle and taking the gun with her left hand. We both smile at each other before I decide to give her my own form of a salute. My right closed fist comes up and plants itself over my left shoulder, right between the shoulder blade and upper chest.

"What was that?" She asks confused at the display.

I shrug sheepishly since that's basically the first time I've ever done that. "I remember you giving Yellow Diamond that Diamond salute when you were talking to her. I figured… maybe I can have my own."

"… Oh." She says at the clarification. She glances between me and her own right hand a few times.

She returns my salute with a smile.

I grin. _'Thank you.'_ "Stick with me Peridot, I'll show a world of human tech."

* * *

 **I'm kind of surprised at how long this was. I honestly thought this was going to be a lot smaller but I guess I surprised myself yet again. I was worried it was going to be small because of the different context and point of views, scene changes and such that made me a little worried about possible confusion between the transitions but I hope I didn't suck too bad with it. I will also say I do like the transactions between Marcus and Peridot. Really starts to give them a new bond between the two of them since its now official that she's on Earth to stay, especially since he's given her an incredibly important job to go along with her new weapon. Whether or not the weapon is going to be used for said in the future, remains to be seen.**

 **Onto other news, it's now officially the start of school and I have to say so far things are looking alright. Granted I've only gone to one class so far but still. Until I meet my other teachers and see how they teach their classes will I start to either be content with the future work they'll give me… or silently but mentally freak the ever living crap out at the assignments. Fingers crossed everything goes alright but either way, it's not like I'm going to quit if it gets too hard. I'm not the type to quit so easily… especially in some moments in video games where my entire team quits and leaves me all alone to deal with the enemies attacks. Annoying but I can safely say I didn't quit when everyone else did.**

 **Just so you all know, while I will be focusing on this story a bit, I will gravitate a little between this and my star wars story. Just to get it off its feet a bit and get the first couple of action chapters published.**

 **Another thing I plan to do is answer guest reviews here in the author notes rather than give vague answers. Seems unfair for me to personally answer or thank those with accounts and I can't do so with guests. All reviews are appreciated regardless. So guest IDIMOND, probably not. Don't have anything planned in that sort of regard, but I guess we'll what happens. After all, we still have another season of Steven Universe episodes that still need to be aired. The wait is killing me.**

 **Thank you all for your support. Please fave, follow, review, keep enjoying my stuff and as always, have fun reading.**


	59. 57 Super Watermelon Island (Part 1)

Things are really starting to look up for us. Peridot's started to integrate well with being a Crystal Gem and we've taken to accepting her as such. My gift has also eased her a bit into a more comfortable state with what's happened lately.

Because of the new cohesion, there is now without a doubt that the drill is up and ready to go at anytime. Already we have the giant machine suspended on some large tall beams of durable wood with the drill part aimed directly down and easily able to cut through the earth when activated. After a couple of chill days and double, even triple-checking, our work do we get that much closer to taking our impromptu transport directly down to our target. All in all things seem to be doing alright and as long as nothing else comes up things should go swimmingly.

*RUMBLE*

*Sigh* Things just can't ever work out can they?

* * *

"Uh!" Steven gasps as he wakes up, leaving himself panting a little

"Didn't you feel that?" Peridot asks everyone.

"Feel what?" Amethyst asks through a mouthful of her sandwich with Pearl and Garnet next to her, except Marcus who is taking inventory inside the barn.

"The ground shook!" The green gem begins explaining. "This could be the start of the emergence of the CLuster." She explains and points to a diagram on a chalkboard next to her. "Stage 1: slight tremors every quarter hour. Stage 2: full-scale earthquakes. Stage 3…" She turns the chalkboard over, revealing a destroyed drawing of the Earth with the text 'CLUSTER EMERGES' 'BYE BYE EARTH.' "The Earth is destroyed! We're running out of time. We need to drill right now!" She declares while pointing downwards.

Steven however has a different theory in mind. "No, it's Malachite!"

"Malachite?!" Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst ask in confused surprise.

"WHAT?!"

*CRASH*

Marcus busts through the wall on the side of the barn and runs right up to Steven before sliding on his knees. "What's this about Malachite?" He asks his brother on his knees with a bit of hope that they've finally found her, especially since no one's spoken up about the fusion since this whole Cluster thing started. Peridot is also slightly freaked out at the sudden entrance the hybrid made without much effort.

"I was on Mask Island." Steven explains. Marcus gets up and now looks confused instead of hopeful, especially since the kid has been here the whole time sleeping. "I was in a Watermelon Steven." _'Ah, that explains it.'_ "They have a lovely community, but Malachite, she was there!"

Everyone stares in awe at the kid at the news they just heard about the fusion they've been searching for for a long time or tried to search for. Amethyst meanwhile coughs up a bit of the sandwich too.

"Malachite…" Marcus breathes and turns away. "We found you… we finally found you… Lapis…" He mutters in stunned happiness after finally finding her. The fusion that's kept one of his dear friends and hated enemies captive for so long.

"Lapis Lazuli is losing control. Soon, Jasper will overpower her and Malachite will be loose." Garnet explains the direness of the rogue fusions situation.

"Who knows what sort of destruction an unstable fusion like Malachite could cause?" Pearl asks.

"It doesn't matter." Marcus pipes up firmly. All eyes fall on his back before turns back to them. "Malachite has been out there for far too long and who knows when we'll be able to find her again. We need to go now and defuse her before we lose track of her again. We CAN'T let his opportunity be wasted." He says in a dead serious tone, leaving no room for argument.

Garnet nods in agreement. "Agreed. This is the closest opportunity we've ever gotten and can't let it pass up."

"Then let's go." Marcus impatiently says and starts walking to the nearest warp pad.

"Not you Marcus."

Everyone looks on stunned at the fusions words. The hybrid in question freezes at the denial. "… No?" He asks confused as he slowly turns around. Knowing just how this might play out, Garnet walks over to the hybrid and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. It relaxes him a little but he still has a cross and slightly angry look about him. "Garnet… you can't keep me out of this. Not when I'm this close. Not when I'm so close to saving her." He pleads to the fusion in a stern but low tone.

"I know that Marcus, but this is a very powerful and very unstable fusion that can do tremendous amounts of damage if the wrong gem takes over and gets free." Garnet begins explaining to him in a slightly quieter tone too so their conversation remains with them. "Pearl, Amethyst and I will engage her fusion to fusion, and you know who we fuse into when the three of us do?" She asks him with a smirk.

' _Alexandrite.'_ Marcus remembers the massive fusion that they became to placate to Connie's parents. However another thought makes him smirk to the fusion. "Hm, don't you mean four?" He asks and taps her hand. She looks at bother her hands for a second before returning the smile.

"Yeah, I suppose they do." She nods and resumes her hand on his shoulder. "Besides, we need you as our last line of defense in case we somehow fail. Think you can prepare?" She asks him.

He stares up at her for a bit before closing his eyes and staring elsewhere. With some mental debate with himself, he sighs and looks back saddened. "Fine. I'll stay. I guess I can recheck the systems on the drill."

"Thank you Marcus." She turns back to the others. "Alright, Gems, Pearl, Amethyst, and I will warp to Mask Island. Steven, it's too dangerous for you. Stay here and watch after the drill with Peridot and Marcus. Let's go, Gems! To the nearest warp pad!" She declares loudly.

"To the nearest warp!" Pearl and Amethyst declare too and start running.

Just before Garnet takes off too, a hand grabs her wrist in a near death grip, stopping her in place. Turning Marcus givers her a fierce look. "You bring her back damnit." He demands in a low voice.

"Hm, don't worry. We got this." She reassures him. Satisfied with the answer, even just a bit, he lets her go. Immediately she takes off after the others and as one they all make it to the warp pad in the distance and the familiar beam of light in the sky signals their departure.

*Rumble*

Another tremor goes over the landscape, making those at the drill just a little uneasy at the new earthquakes that have been taking place recently. They settle down on the white blanket Steven was lying on earlier and just proceed to wait for the gems to come back. Some are content to stay while other are not, and also silently brood.

"So... Lazuli has Jasper trapped in a fusion? You're joking me." Peridot asks with them.

Marcus sighs at the truth of the matter. "I wish I was Peridot. I really wish I was." He groans as he lies on his back and stares into the sky with his arms behind his head.

"Yeah it's true! But Lapis must be getting tired from fighting Jasper for so long." Steven adds sadly.

"Geez how long has it been? I feel like it's been a year already but it's not."

"Just being on a ship with Jasper made me tired." Peridot drones as she recalls her own experiences with the Quartz soldier.

*Rumble*

"Man are these things seriously caused by Malachite along?" Marcus groans as he sits up. "If so then I'm a little worried for the gems in taking her on." He says with a mixture of genuine worry but also still angry that he was asked to stay back. _'If Vindicator was up and running I could possibly help but after my battle with Peridot he is still out of commission. What else could I use?'_ He thinks of what his arsenal consists of.

"Your right! We gotta help them! But they told me it was too dangerous." He says as he jumps up, ready to go but stops himself as he remembers the order from the gems.

"Why don't you just disobey them? Rebel. Isn't that, like, your guys' thing?" Peridot asks.

"Ughhh, Peridot. It's not like that. We don't just rebel at any point we want." Marcus lightly scolds her.

"You're right."

"What?" Marcus asks confused at his brothers agreement.

"Oh, I know! I'll fall asleep and go into a Watermelon Steven again. This way, I can help them and be safe at the same time. Eheheheheh." Steven proposes instead.

"Wow. You're a real anarchist." Peridot says sarcastically.

"Steven, are you sure you—"

"No one can tell me what to do." Steven softly says and before we know it he falls right to sleep.

"Steven." Marcus calls his brothers name at him thinking he's pretending to sleep. "Steven… Steven?" Now he's confused and snaps his fingers a couple times before really believing his brother just instantly fell asleep. "Wow, lucky."

"Well, what do we do now?" Peridot asks him.

He looks at her before looking elsewhere and thinking on what can they do. _'Steven's going to back up the gems with a Watermelon Steven, but unless he can get all of them to help I don't think he'll be much help to the gems. Malachite seemed pretty powerful but who knows exactly what type of power she has. Combining that of Jasper and Lapis… I'm worried.'_ He begins pacing. ' _Garnet said no but we really can't let this opportunity escape us. But what do I have that can possibly take on—'_ He cuts off his own thoughts as he remembers something he has that can definitely put in an effort in fighting Malachite. Slowly a grin spreads across his face as he slowly turns back to the green gem. "Peridot, I'm gonna need your help."

She looks on in confusion at his request.

* * *

An intense battle takes place on the shore of Mask Island. The unstable fusion known as Malachite takes on the Crystal Gem fusion known as Alexandrite in the waters just off of Mask Island, now housing the village of the Watermelon Steven's.

Alexandrite lets out a roar before charging her opponent. Malachite sends one of her water fists straight her enemy, who dodges the attack and jumps forward. Malachite sees this and uses her remaining water fist to grab Alexandrite out of the air. Not wanting to be held for too long, she retaliates and frees herself by letting loose a large breath of fire at the water arm, quickly evaporating it and landing on her feet again. Malachite is angry at the attack and picks up several small balls of water in her top right hand before turning them to ice crystal shards and sending them towards her opponent. Alexandrite deflects the projectiles by pulling out Amethyst's whip and whipping them away. As she recovers does she pull out Pearl's spear and form them into Opals bow and fires a large energy arrow straight at Malachite before it splits into nine smaller arrows. She brings up a wall of water before they hit and quickly hardens it to ice, creating a shield strong enough to negate the arrow strike.

Malachite decides to go a different route and sprouts Lapis Lazuli's water wings before flying straight into the air. She does the spin attack used by Jasper and propels herself downwards towards her enemy before flying straight with Jasper's crash helmet on her head at her enemy. Alexandrite doesn't have time to dodge or properly take the hit and is hit full force by the attack. They both hit the island with Alexandrite cushioning the fall for Malachite. Unfortunately once of Alexandrites arms lands on the warp pad native to the island, cutting of quick access to and from the island.

Malachite breathes heavily at the momentary lapse in the fight and goes to punch her enemy but Alexandrite brings her leg up and hits her chest, knocking her away. Malachite grunts as she's pushed back before bringing her arms up to grab the pouncing the fusion. They both lock arms against each other and Alexandrite is about to use her remaining two free arms to hit but Malachite pulls her around.

At the end, Malachite gains the upper hand and pins Alexandrite to the side of the cliff on Mask Island.

"You know, you're right." She cackles at the pinned fusion. Alexandrite tries to breathe fire on her opponent to get her off but is interrupted by a punch. "There really is something more to this fusion thing. It's not just a cheap trick." She then throws Alexandrite away towards the ocean. She screams as she goes flying before splashing into the ocean hard. "You've really shown me a whole new world of possibilities." She boasts as she starts to make her way towards the kneeling fusion.

Alexandrite on her part stays on her hands and knees and groans before her forms starts to unfuse. She glows for a moment before stopping and retaining her form. "Keep it together." She tells herself firmly.

"Allow me to thank you." Malachite says and with a wave of her arms, a pair of water hands appear around her and close on Alexandrite before freezing. "Sorry, but there's only room for one abomination on this measly planet. Hahahahaaaa!" She cackles and starts to constrict the hands.

*BOOOOM!*

"Arrrrrhhh!" Malachite screams in pain as two plooms of explosions appear on her left side. She leans forward in pain at the sudden blasts against her. With Alexandrite incapacitated in the frozen hands, she turns around at the source that dares attack her. Her four eyes widen as she stares at the hovering Russian Hind helicopter several meters away from her.

The helicopter hovers in the air at eye level with the fusion but it's what's inside that makes her pause.

Peridot sits uncomfortably in the upper pilot seat as she shrinks from the menacing glare of the large fusion.

Marcus however, sitting in the lower seat keeps his face passively neutral as he stares at his target.

Neither say anything at first as they examine each other.

"Marcus…" For a moment, the face of Malachite shifts, allowing Lapis to give a smile at seeing the face of her savior from the crashing ship.

Marcus's face breaks away to awe and a smile at seeing her still in there. The instant later however the face morphs back into a snarl. "NOOO!" Malachite screams as she grabs her face. "I am done being held down. I'm in control now and you won't stop me!" She yells at herself.

* * *

My teeth grind and my hand comes incredibly close to tearing apart the flight stick in front of me in anger.

For a second, a goddamn second I saw her. I saw Lapis right there in that thing and Jasper pushed her back down.

' _She's still in there. She's still trapped. I'm going to destroy you Jasper. I swear I am going to—'_

"Uhhh, what are we going to do now?" Peridot's question knocks me from my mental threats. Glancing back up at her I can see she's still a little nervous being in this ship. No doubt confused and nervous about using this machine that's still archaic to her. "Because it looks like she's getting ready to clobber us!" She points out scared towards the fusion in front of us.

Turning back, I spot Malachite begin to form two giant water fists in the air with a sadistic smile. With a grimace, I flip on the speakers in this thing and put the pilots helmet with headset on me and adjust the microphone. "Jasper!" I yell into the microphone, the loudspeaker outside enhancing my voice several times louder than normal. The fusion stops moving and looks at me quizzically. "I am giving you just one chance to unfuse and go! Leave Lapis out this!" I demand loudly. In the back of my mind I hope, just hope that maybe she'll take it but from what I remember her, I know it's a fruitless endeavor.

Especially she screams loudly in anger and sends her fists flying straight at us. "Look out!"

"Ngh!" I grunt and shift the controls to the left, banking the helicopter to the side and out of the way of the flying fists at us. Peridot yelps at the sudden shift in gravity but holds steady, even when she accidentally depresses the trigger on her controls and sends a stream of 12.7 x 108mm bullets from the Yak-B rotary cannon under the chin of our ride. The bullets don't penetrate the fusions form but they do impact hard and rough against her, making her recoil and bring her arms up in a vain attempt to protect herself from the short onslaught. Soon I bring out ride floating to the side of the trapped Alexandrite. She looks surprised at us being here no doubt but we can't focus on that. "Alexandrite, you okay?" I aks over the loudspeaker.

"I'm fine! What are you doing here?! We told you to stay behind!" She yells at us.

"You did… but it looks like you could use some help." I state with a smirk. She doesn't retort and tell us to go because right now, her being trapped in the frozen contradicts anything she might try to say against us. I switch off the loudspeaker and address my copilot. "Alright Peridot, you have access to the controls for the precision guided AGM-114 Hellfire rockets and the 360 degree rotating turret under us." I start flipping and activating the controls necessary to get my armament system ready for use.

"What are you going to use?" She asks me from behind.

With a smile, I grip the flight stick controls and glance at my ammo counters from both the GSh-23 twin barreled 23mm autocannons under the wings, alongside Peridot's AGM's and my Hydra 70 unguided rocket pods carrying 25 rockets each, giving me a total 40 to work with. "Don't worry about me." I say with a smile as I firmly grip the controls and get ready to get this under way. "Hey." Peridot stops shaking and glances down at me. I turn to the side and give her my best comforting smile. "Don't worry, I got you… if you got me." I tell her.

She stares at me before taking a deep breath and gripping her controls. "I got you."

"Good." Turning back to our enemy, Malachite regains her bearings and stares at us with death in her eyes, although it's more like Jasper because I'm not seeing Lapis in that fusion. "Don't let up. Give it everything you got." I tell my copilot and set everything ready. "Take down that fusion!"

The fight begins.

* * *

Malachite with a roar sends her arms up. Taking the initiative the hind goes flying straight up as Peridot opens fire with her machine gun. Two water fists appear from below and slam into just where the hind was hovering. The bullets let loose forces Malachite to bring her arms up to block them as the Hind goes into a slight dip forward. Aiming as best he can towards his enemy, Marcus sends half a dozen Hydra missiles streaking towards the fusion. They impact hard against her, making her cry out in pain at the multiple explosions on her form but it still just makes her angrier. Pulling up some balls of water, they turn to sharpened ice crystals and fly towards the helicopter. The Hind banks to the ride and all three machine guns open fire, peppering the fusion across her entire form and making small splashes of water appear all around her. It continues to fire and circle around the fusion until she pulls up a dome of water all around her and hardens it to ice.

A salvo of rockets come flying out of the rocket pods and two Hellfire rockets streak towards the defended fusion. They impact the shield with a devastating blast that covers the entire dome and sends fire and smoke flying into the air. The ice melts a bit at first before it cracks and shatters all together. Through the smoke, a water fist comes streaking towards the Hind.

"Look out!"

"Evading!"

Marcus tries to pull the helicopter to the side but the water fist clips it right in its sides, sending it into a heavy tail spin through the air. Peridot screams in fright while Marcus tries to stabilize the out of control helicopter with alarms blaring all around them before it crashes into the island or water. He grunts as the spinning starts to make him dizzy but he regains control as the helicopter glides dangerously close to the water. It skims across it but continues to strafe to the right. "FIRE!" Marcus orders and both he and Peridot open fire with everything they have as Malachite brings her arms up. As bullets and missiles fly out towards the fusion, multiple water fists fly out from under them one by one, barely missing them as they continue to strafe and shoot around her. She uses one of her arms to form an ice shield in front of them but it quickly proves useless as they already move past where the shield was erected. Soon after they go and take a moment to reorient themselves with Malachite recoiling from the onslaught. "Peridot! You alright?"

"Ugh… yeah, kind of. Dizzy but I'll manage." She replies weakly.

"Alright, ammo check. I'm still good on bullets and rockets. You?"

"Uhhh, AGM's are out but I still have access to the turret."

"Good, but I don't think we can take her on ourselves. We need help." Glancing out the window, he spots Alexandrite still trapped. "Alright, get ready Peridot. We're going for a strafing run. Target the hands holding Alexandrite."

"Uhhhh, okay." She reluctantly agrees, not alright with the idea of shooting their ally but if Malachite can take their abuse, then so can she, especially if they focus on what's keeping her stuck.

"Get ready, we're going in." He tells her and starts dipping forward straight to the trapped fusion. They see Malachite start to get itself together so they need to finish this. "Alright, we're close. As soon as we get close, open fire."

"Right!"

"Almost there… almost…" He mutters as his aim on his weapon systems start to come onto target. "Ready… Aim…" Both of them press their fingers to their respective triggers. "Fi- Arh!"

"Ahh!"

Before they can free Alexandrite, a sudden force stops their momentum cold. Their accidentally fire a flurry of bullets but miss as their bodies pushed forward accidentally on their controls, sending the bullets hitting the water below her instead. They both groan as they sit back up. "Ow. What the hell happened?" Marcus groans after nearly cracking the window with his head.

"I don't know. We just stopped and…" Peridot begins to say but trails off. He looks at her in confusion but the look of scared horror on her face dictates she sees what's stopped them. Even more so when she points out the right side window. Marcus glances outside in the same direction and his eyes widen at the problem.

A very long water whip is connected to the tail of their helicopter. They were well out of the range of most of her water attacks, unfortunately this one leaves them stuck and captured by Malachite. She gives them a sadistic grin before chuckling darkly.

The whip pulls them back as they try to pull away but it jerks them towards Malachite before she grabs the water whip and starts twisting around in a spin, taking the helicopter too as it spins around her quickly. She brings it low to the water a couple spins before it skips off the surface, making a massive wave of water fly up as the machine impacts hard against it. Even more alarms go off in the cockpit as multiple systems get damaged from the attack. They finally stop spinning but its only to them seeing Malachite stare at them menacingly.

"You have been a thorn in my side for too long!" She yells and slowly reels in the helicopter to her. Peridot starts panicking as they closer and closer while Marcus tries to break free from her hold. "What?! Did you honestly think you could possibly defeat me in this?!" She accentuates the question by shaking the whip, in turn making the helicopter shake its occupants. "Your puny excuse for a ship! Your nothing compared to me! There's no way you could defeat me!" She screeches and as soon as they are close enough, she reaches forward and grabs the main belly of the helicopter from below. It's so she can keep a firm hold and so she doesn't have to worry about the spinning blades on top and behind. She glares through the right side windows of the helicopter with a maniacal smile. "Oh I am going to have so much fun tearing you apart in front of your friend here." She threatens and glances to Alexandrite. She gets angry and tries to break her prison but she's still trapped too well. "He he he hee." She cackles darkly and with one of her hands grabs the front and slowly applies pressure. The entire cockpits windows start to break and crack and controls start sparking and blaring loudly.

"Ohclodohclodohclod!" Peridot panics.

' _Cmonc'monc'mon… theirs gotta be something!'_ Marcus thinks as he tries to do something but all his controls are frozen.

"HAHAHAAA!" Malachite laughs as the machine in her hand prepares to blow.

*Shink*

"Huh?" She stops all together as something taps her. She turns back to see something weird to her while also letting go of the cockpit, allowing the pilots to see as well what just saved them.

A loud war horn blares through the air, signifying an attack.

A flurry of spears and arrows rain down on Malachite from the direction of the island. She's confused at first from the attacks but she only laughs as the flimsy pieces of wood and metal barely makes a scratch on her. Another horn goes off, signaling another attack to strike. What hits her now is much stronger than arrows as several giant boulders of stone are launched from catapults and impact the side of her head. She growls as she stares at the contraptions but grunts as a delayed stone hits her right between her eyes. An aerial attack from the Watermelon Stevens is next as they use gliders to fly over her and land on her face. Once they attack themselves to her face, Malachite is confused at the attack but a Watermelon Steven in a skirt and wearing a flower necklace punches her in her bottom right eye. "Arrrrr!" She groans in pain at the small but still effective hit to her eye. With a groan, she uses one of her free hands to slap the nuisances from her face so she can see. "Grrrr- Huh?" She begins to growl and gets ready to retaliate but the helicopter in her hand gets her attention.

Marcus leans out of the open window of the pilot seat, one hand grasping the edge to hold himself steady, the other holding his refurbished, pristine condition sawed off double barrel shotgun. Now equipped with modern age material, the blackened at all angles shotgun points directly at Malachite face with Marcus sporting an angry and fierce face.

All four of her eyes cross to look at the barrel a half a dozen feet from her face.

"EAT THIS!"

*BOOM*

The world slows as he depresses both triggers on the gun at once. In the right barrel, a 12 gauge slug round propels itself from the barrel and flies straight at its target. The left barrel however fires a shell containing the contents of a dragon's breath round. The tiny metal shards fly out with the slug and fire explodes from the barrel, coating all the projectiles as fire and metal head straight or Malachite's face. The fire hits all of her at once, and the slug flys directly at the center of Jaspers gem.

"AAAAARRRRHHHHH!" She screams in agony as she covers her face with three of her hands, the fire burning her at all points on her face and the slug breaking on Jaspers gem, not enough to shatter or crack but enough to make her feel much much pain. Marcus flies back from into his seat from the force of the shots going off and quickly closes the window.

"NOW!"

"Raaaaah!"

Peridot aims the turret back and fires right at the wrist of the hand that's holding their helicopter in place. The close proximity bullets impact the fusions hand, making her let go of her captive opponent. Now free, Marcus pulls the controls as hard to the left as he can, pushing as much distance as he can from the fusion and them. "Fire!" Marcus orders and both he and Peridot open fire in front of them at their captured ally. Both machine gun sets fire and pepper the ice hands holding Alexandrite and cracks start to form all over. Unfortunately while Peridot is able to keep firing, Marcus's loses control and is barely able to keep his ride in the air what with all the damage they sustained.

For Alexandrite, the bullets are all that she needs and with a powerful flex of her arms does she send her makeshift prison exploding in a shower of ice shards. She growls before letting loose a loud fierce roar of anger towards her enemy.

Meanwhile Marcus is having trouble keeping themselves stable from all the damage they sustained. "Ahhh, damn. My controls are shot! Barely keeping us in the air! Peridot I'm transferring all weapons controls to you!" He informs her as she starts doing what he said.

"What?! Are you serious?!"

"We don't have a choice! My controls are shot and the only thing I have access to is flying and that's coming apart at the seams too!" He retorts and finishes the transfer. "We only got one more for a strafing run in us. Be ready!"

With Malachite, she still feels the burn on her face and the reverberating slug round hitting one of her gems directly. With a groan she takes her hands away from her face to reveal some scorch marks but she's absolutely pissed overall. "I have had enough of this!" She yells and slams her fists into the water, creating a massive wave that blasts the Watermelon Steven's on the beach away from her except one and its watermelon dog. "I am going to destroy you!" She yells and several water arms fly into the air and converge on the helicopter.

"Hey!"

"Wha—!" Before she can crush the barely stable machine, Sugilite's flail wraps around Malachite, pinning her arms to her sides before the weight at the end hits her in the face, dazing her. The attack also allows the water arms to fall back into the ocean and the hind to gain altitude.

"Bark bark!" The watermelon dog barks happily at the hold on Malachite and the Watermelon Steven, controlled by actual Steven, smiles at Alexandrite back in the fight.

"Don't forget about me!" She reminds Malachite about her before pulling her back. Malachite glides along the water towards Alexandrite before turning to face her. As soon as she gets close enough, Alexandrite stops her cold with a powerful gut punch, making her groan considerably. Momentarily stunned, Alexandrite takes the opportunity and forms Sardonyx's hammer before delivering a devastating uppercut, sending the rogue fusion spinning and flying high into the air. Once she stops, Malachite sprouts her water wings and stops mid-air. She growls as she stares down at the opponent that got the jump on her. She concentrates her powers to attack while still very far away.

*Boom*

"Arh!" She grunts as another explosion hits her. Looking to the side, she spots the hind speeding towards her before it opens fires with all its machine guns. No time to move or defend, she's forced to take every round full force followed by a cluster of rockets that block out her entire form in a cloud of smoke and fire. The hind speeds by just barely grazing the cloud before it stops and turns around. Once the cloud disappears, Malachite is still floating in the air but still noticeably weaker. She gives a low growl at the machine that's been hitting her again and again before looking down at her original opponent. She gasps as she sees Alexandrite ready with Opal's bow and arrow ready to strike.

"You two should spend some time apart." With a final statement, she lets loose the energy arrow. A loud snap permeates the air waves as it flies straight towards its target. Mid-flight, the arrow changes to the shape of Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst all holding hands as they spin in the air. They come together again before the arrow speeds forward and pierces flying fusion with ease. For a second nothing happens except for the glazed and surprised look on Malachite's face before her form glows, cracks, and finally, explodes.

* * *

I can only stare as I see the usual white cloud that appears when a gems form is destroyed. My breathing starts to get heavy as I watch both Jasper and Lapis fall to the ground without them looking like they're going to break their own falls. I'm half tempted to bring the helicopter in close above them and jump to capture Lapis but I can't. Not with Peridot in here and no knowledge on how to pilot this thing.

Thankfully my fears are suppressed as Alexandrite moves under them and easily captures the two before taking them to the island. "Hooooooo." I let out a breath of air I didn't know I was holding and lean back in my seat. With a heavy hand I take off the headset and place it in my lap. "That… was too close."

"Yeah… it sure was." Peridot gasps out from behind me. The entire machine around us rumbling pretty dangerously and its making me very uneasy at the shaking and alerts that are appearing on our consoles. Still it hasn't crashed yet and I can keep it somewhat stable.

Taking a few more moments to catch our breaths, I gently glide us down and close to the island where everyone is. Alexandrite unfused, no doubt the gems exhausted from the fight that took place, and Pearl and Garnet are standing up, thanking the Watermelon Steven's while Amethyst is face down in the sand with Lapis on their left and Jasper on their right. I'll admit, it looks weird seeing Steven's creations after so long, especially when they tried to kill us all, but he was right about them being okay now. Garnet makes a comment that actually makes them all blush and look sheepish. The act makes me feel lighthearted after the torment we all just endured.

Once I come down close enough to the ground, everyone starts to notice us and the watermelons cheer. Coming to a nice clear open spot, I gently take her down for a smooth landing on the gems right.

*Thud*

… Mostly.

The wheels break off as we roughly land, leave us inside in a stunned pose, waiting to see if this thing will topple over but it stays firm. "Huuuuu!" We both let out a breath of air with me slumping and Perdot laying her head on her console. Slowly I open the window as Garnet comes over. "Hey." I tiredly greet her.

"Hey. Nice work back there you two."

"Thanks." Peridot replies with a muffled voice. I smile too as wave back to the cheers of our audiences. The blades above are still spinning pretty fast but are taking a long time to fully stop.

As I glance over at Lapis however my smile drops and li look on in concern. "Lapis…" I glance at Garnet. "Is she…?"

"She's fine. Just exhausted is all." She explains, putting me at ease.

"Phew, that's good at least. She could use the rest." I sigh in relief. I lean forward a bit and shake my head to get my bearings. I look up to see the Watermelon Steven's looking at us. I smile and wave to them. "Thank you all! Your timing could not have been more perfect! I owe you my life. I'm grateful." I thank them from my seat in the pilot seat and even adding a small bow too with just the upper part of my body. She all blush sheepishly at my compliment with even one of them waving back at me. Everyone laughs at that and the overall mood seems to finally be lifted with everyone in good spirits. I lean back and close my eyes with a smile on my face. _'We got her… we finally got her. She's back. She's coming home…'_ I hate how I wasn't able to do as much as I would have liked in the search for her in the first place, but she's free and back now finally. _'Thank you…'_

*Rumble*

"Wha—?!" I gasp in surprise as yet another tremor rumbles all around us, only this time it feels stronger. Peridot and I straighten up in our seats as the rumbling transfers to our ride too while everyone else struggles to remain standing. I look all around us to see what else might be causing but there's only one other option that makes my heart. _'Oh no! Not now!'_ Ahead of us I spot massive cracks starting to form and split the ground apart around us. "Son of—!" I immediately turn the engines and thankfully the blades were still spinning, making us gain some air a lot sooner than if they were stopped completely. Just in time too because a particularly large crack heads straight for us. "C'mon c'mon c'mooooon…"

"Up, upupupup! Get us up!"

"I'm trying!" I reply back to Peridot in her panicked state. Thankfully, just as it splits apart under us, we barely dip before finally get some traction in the air. Pulling up as hard as I can, we go soaring back up high into the air and away from the possibility of us crashing through the separating earth. I quickly look down to see if the other are alright. The piece of the earth that separates the gems from everyone else goes into a slant and much to my relief Amethyst manages to grab Lapis from sliding into the fissure while Jasper does. Not really sad about seeing her disappear into the earth. _'Hope you rot.'_ I can't help but think darkly.

"It must be the cluster!" Garnet yells surmises for what's going on. "Peridot you were right!"

"Of course I was right!" She yells back down to them as I try to bring it in close to them. "Now we need to get back to the drill and take care of the Cluster NOW before it tears this planet apart!"

"Hold on down there!" I yell down before putting the helmet back on and getting as close as I can to them so they can get in the back. "I'm bringing it in close! Get ready to board!" I tell them as I flip the loudspeakers on.

"Wait, Marcus! It's too dangerous!" Garnet replies.

"I am not leaving you all her—!"

*CRINK*

"Fuck!" My careful maneuvering completely goes out of left field as the sound of metal tearing cuts through the air, and we start swerving to the side. "Damn." I grunt and pull back on the controls to bring us up and possibly not hitting the ground.

"What was that?!"

"I don't know!" I yell back to my copilot before keeping it as stable as I can but that's a stretch. Quickly I lean out to examine the damage and I see what the problem is. The back propeller took a lot of damage, leading to it now spin dangerously with it wobbling all over the place. "God damnit!" I curse as I pull myself back in and try to keep us from crashing. "Rear propellers damaged. I can't keep her stable."

"Marcus! Peridot!" I look down at Garnet yelling up to us. "Get back to the drill before you crash!"

"But what about you?!" I call back.

"The warp pad was destroyed and you barely keeping that thing together! If you and Peridot are stranded here then Steven won't be able to use the drill! You have to get back NOW!"

I'm conflicted. The Cluster is emerging now but the others are stuck on that island and my hind is on its last legs. I can't leave them here but if it emerges were all dead!

My hands grip the controls tightly before I groan loudly. "Graaa! You all get back home in one piece do you hear me! ALL! OF! YOU! IN ONE PIECE!" I demand from them as loud as I can, even more so amplified by the loudspeaker before I pull away.

"We will!"

"You got this!"

"Good luck all of you!"

Those are the last words I hear from them before focus all my effort in speeding us as fast as I can back to the drill. Thankfully, the upgraded engine I gave the first time works out perfectly for us.

I just have to keep this thing from crashing.

* * *

"Huh?!" Steven gasps as he wakes up. Now out of the Watermelon Steven and back in his own body, he sees he's back at the barn with the drill ready to go. Only one problem: No anyone else to control it. "Oh geez!" He says worried as he stares at the machine as the rumbling starts to get worse. "Why didn't anyone teach me how to pilot this thing?!" He asks out loud with hands place on either side of his face. He looks around and sees no one else here. "C'mon you guys! Please hurry!" He worriedly hopes for them get here soon before the Cluster does too much damage. Thankfully his hoping works out as over the horizon he sees the familiar helicopter coming straight for him. "Yes!" He pumps his arms in glee and smiles widely at seeing his brother and friend so close.

*Boom*

His happiness fades as an explosion goes off on the flying machine. His eyes widen as he stares worried when the propeller in the back breaks off and a ton of smoke and fire flows of the vehicle. "Whoa!" Steven ducks to the ground.

*Crash*

Looking up and behind him he sees the propeller embed itself into the side of the barn, barely missing him. He stands back up and look on as the machine spins out of control.

* * *

"God damn! Propellers out! We're out of control!" I shout as we start spinning like crazy with me trying as hard as I can to keep us in the air. Through the spinning I can see we are over the drill and Steven down below but there's no way I can land this thing when it's out of control. _'Only one chance.'_ "Peridot! Get to the back! Grab some rope and get ready to repel down!"

"What?! Are you crazy?!" She replies and looks at me like I'm crazy, which I might be at this point.

"We don't have a choice! You are the only one that can pilot the drill and I can't land this thing properly! You need to get down there now before the Cluster emerges." I explain as best I can.

"What about you?!"

"…" I don't respond at first to her question. "Don't worry about me."

"… But…"

"Peridot… Go…" I turn my head to the side and look at her out of the corner of my eye. "…now." I order her to do.

Even though we are spinning, she still stares at me with a surprised and worried expression. After a moment, she hesitantly nods. "Right. Good luck." She wishes me and heads off to the back.

"I think you're the one that's going to need it." I mutter to myself as I focus on controlling this wreck. I don't know who strong Peridot is compared to the other gems but if she can use some rope in the back to lessen the speed at which she heads to the ground then she'll be in a better position to help Steven. I can bail just fine but I can't afford to let this thing crash into the drill or else everything is done for. After a few moments of forcefully controlling this thing, I hear her.

"Alright! I'm ready!" A glance back shows me Peridot gripping the rope tightly and leaning heavily against the wall because of the spinning, allowing her to be ready to throw it out.

"Alright! On my mark rope down and get going with Steven to the drill and deal with the Cluster got it?!" I yell back while glancing to her. She nods firmly. "Good! Get ready!" I prepare her and slowly bring it down as close as I can. The spinning is starting to get to my head now and its getting harder and harder to keep this thing as stable as humanly possible. _'It's now or never!'_ I grit teeth. "THREE…! TWO…! ONE... MARK!"

"Heyup!"

I grit my teeth harder as I pull the controls as hard as I can in the opposite direction of the spinning in hopes of some form of stabilization and it works… sort of.

The last of my controls are shot.

I'm going down.

* * *

"Peridot!"

"Whaaaaaaaaa- Oof!" The sliding green gems spins around hectically from the rope tied to the machine before she slams into the ground and rolls a few times before stopping in a heap. Steven runs up to her and helps her stand. "Uhhh, thanks." She groans as she gets to her feet.

"No problem. But where's—" He begins to ask her but the sound of metal tearing makes them look up. Above them they see the helicopter spin dangerously all over the air with the machine showing no signs of this going well. His heart starts to beat faster as he watches how bad this looks. He takes a step forward as the war machine takes a moment to spin up, then heads straight towards the ground.

With a fierce cry of metal tearing, fires break out with the ground tearing apart as the machine plows through the dirt and grass with the blades on top carving deep groves into the ground. Bits and pieces of the blades themselves fly off and flip through the air before embedding themselves in the dirt before the machine slowly comes to a halt. It balances on its side for a second, precariously about to fall entirely on its side before with the sound of metal straining, it lands on the bottom of it with a loud 'thud'. Peridot and Steven stare at the gnarled machine, hoping to find some movement of the pilot.

Steven takes a step forward.

An explosion goes off on the back of it and fire starts to encompass the machine. "MARCUS!"

"Steven no!"

"Let me go!" He tries to run forward to try to help his trapped brother but Peridot grabs him and holds him back.

"Steven we have to take care of the Cluster!"

"I don't care! I can't lose him!"

"Steven!" She turns him around and makes him look at her. Tears are close to breaking from his eyes as they stare at each other. "It won't matter if you save him if the Cluster emerges! This whole planet will be reduced to nothing and everyone will perish, regardless if you save him or not!" She explains. A look of realization graces his features but he still looks conflicted. "We have to do this Steven. He said he'll be fine. We have to trust him… just as he trusts us to save the earth." Slowly, she lets him go and takes a few steps away before running to the drill and getting ready to start drilling.

Steven watches her go before staring at the crash site, a pang of regret and guilt flooding for leaving. "Please come back."

"Steven! Let's go!" Peridot calls out to him and ducks back into the drills cockpit.

He glances back to her before staring one last time at the slowly burning wreckage and takes off to help Peridot finish this.

* * *

 **And yet another chapter is out. Love how this one turned out and Marcus finally is able to use his Hind helicopter. Can't think of any better reason for him to use it than going up against Malachite. Pretty much how I saw it was that Jasper all but took over after Lapis was in control for so long so in the fight, all he was picturing was doing all that explosive bullet riddled damage to the orange gem. Now though, it looks like things are going to get complicated for Steven and Marcus possibly trapped in his burning death machine with the rest of the gem trapped on Mask Island while the world tears itself apart.**

 **Just a normal day in the life of Steven Universe you know?**

 **Anyway, still gonna go on that train of chapters while also work a little on the star wars story a little at a time so hopefully expect another chapter within the next week or two.**

 **I also bought the Assassin's Creed Syndicate bundle that includes the full game and all the DLC. I've already finished the main story and now I'm starting the Jack the Ripper DLC. Already I can tell it's going to be crazy.**

 **Now for the guest reviews replies:**

 **NatWutz: Don't about her limb enhancers, I have something else planned for those in the future. As for the gun and its power against the monster instead of Marcus, it may be powerful and can tear apart a lot with ease, its still a matter of flesh and bone like Marcus himself.**

 **Bomberguy789 (Ch. 54: ICBG): Yeah over a year old. I was surprised myself and still surprised on how popular everyone has taken to it. Also, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT! I knew it. I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it. I had a feeling this was going to happen because it happened to me so long ago. Forgetting to check the M section because this site always sets the search parameters back to the most being T. That's why I did that one moment of temporarily setting the story back to T so I can tell everyone to remember to change the search rating so everyone can properly see my story. I'm glad you were able to find it again and no worries about not reviewing as often.**

 **Bombrguy789 (Ch. 56: Log Date 7-16-2): Yeah, definitely pretty different between those two countries. Thanks again and I hope the chapters continue to excite you and everyone else.**

 **Granted, after the last chapter these were the next set of guest reviews that popped up so sorry if others were expecting some replies here from before. Remember I'll be replying like this to guest reviews from now on. Those of you with accounts I personally try to send a message to reply to those reviews so don't worry about not seeing the replies here.**

 **One final note, becareful everyone. I've heard some daunting reports from the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and now with Irma on the horizon, things are looking bad. To anyone in or near the path of the hurricane and possibly others in the future, good luck to each and everyone of you.**

 **And with that done, thank you all for the support. Fave, follow, review, have a great day, and as always, have fun reading.**


	60. 58 The Drill (Part 2)

Time passes as the duo travel downwards to the mantle of the earth.

After being sidetracked by Malachite at Mask Island, the majority of the gems are trapped on the slowly destroying island with the warp pad there broken too, leaving only Marcus, Peridot and Steven to take the drill and deal with the Cluster before it emerges.

That too has gone wrong.

Marcus was forced to bring as much control on his badly damaged helicopter as he can to prevent it from destroying Peridot and the drill. Now last they saw of him was the machine bursting in flames while the landscape around them was breaking apart at the seams from earthquakes and tremors. The two of them sit in somewhat silence of the drill as they continue to burrow down towards where the Cluster is. Steven was all determined and ready to put an end to the Cluster but after Peridot mentioned it would take them like two hours to get to their destination, Steven is now bored after his feeling of determination went away. "Wish I'd brought some tunes." He mumbles absent mildly.

*Click*

With a press of a button, Peridot puts on some music to try to pass the time for the two of them. It just so happens that the only music that they have set up for the ride down is what amounts to elevator music. Fitting since they are going directly down. "Uh, thanks." He thanks her and goes back to looking out the window. Time passes for them in silence as they continue to travel deeper into the earth. As they rocks pass by the window Steven's eyes are filled with anguish as the rocks pass by them. He shuts his eyes tightly and shakes his head then decides to talk to Peridot as a distraction. "It's kinda… freaky down here, huh?"

"Why's that?" She asks.

"It's just dark, and cramped… Ngah, I can't even, gah, stretch out." He complains as he tries to stretch his body. Once he finishes trying to stretch, the compartment tremors momentarily. Peridot and Steven look around in worry and curiosity at what the tremors mean for them. "How'd you think you were gonna get everyone in here anyway?" He asks her now that he sees just how small the machines pilot seat is.

"I don't know, they'd shrink or something. We didn't have a lot of time to plan." Peridot explains the best she can.

"Oh… and Marcus? He doesn't shapeshift." Steven points out matter a fact.

"He doesn't?" She asks in slight surprise. "But I thought you and he are still able to shapeshift despite being part organic?"

"We can. He just doesn't like too."

"Any reason why not?"

"Not particularly. He mentioned something about not wanting to mess his body up or something like that."

"Oh." After that, the two of them fall into relative silence yet again as they continue on with the trip.

"I hope he got out okay." Steven says as he continues to stare out into the window.

"Hm? Oh right." She's confused by what he means but quickly gets it. "I'm sure with what he's been through thus far, I don't think he'll killed quite so easily with a crash like that." She sounds so sure of herself.

"You think?" He asks looking at her. She turns to him and smirks.

"You're the one that's been friends with him the longest. You tell me." She says.

He stares at her for a bit before turning towards the outside and remembering all the times he's been at odds and fighting. From the first time they met, the incident with Frybo, then him taking on Sugilite, the times he was kidnapped by that evil human group, and that monster that lives inside him, he smiles at his brother's knack for taking on near impossible odds and coming back alive. Not unscathed but always coming back. "Yeah, you're right. I'm sure he's fine." He says with a smile.

* * *

*SLAM*

"STUPID…! MOTHER…! GOD… DAMNIT…!" I angrily shout as I continuously slam my foot into the window to my right. The damn thing fused shut from a combination of the fire and the crash landing so now I'm stuck in here that's SLOWLY TURNING INTO AN OVEN! And I'm not about to go through the back because the fires already engulfed that area. "C'mon c'mon!" I grunt as I keep slamming my foot, making the metal and glass warp and slowly give way. "Open damnit, open!" I wail one last time and finally it tears off. The window breaks off and goes flying several feet before it tumbles against the dirt. "I let out a breath of relief at finally having my escape.

At least until I notice my sleeve is on fire.

"Oh god!" I quickly grab the top and pull myself out the window feet first before slamming into the ground. Next the cockpit catches fire and more fire comes close to engulfing me. Next I jump forward away from the wreckage before slamming into the ground and rolling around as much as I can, snuffing out the fire on my arm and any that might be forming on the rest of me. I continue to roll away from the fire trap until I'm a good enough distance away and I'm thoroughly put out. With a sigh as I look into the sky when I lay on my back, I slowly sit up and take a look around me. The drill is gone and there's a hole right under where it was. Next my Russian Hind helicopter is completely totaled and is engulfed almost completely in fire. Normally I would be worried and scared of the war machine combusting and exploding its fuel and payload, but we used all of the ammo in the fight against Malachite and I was on bingo fuel when we came back here so their shouldn't be enough to cause an explosion. I get to my feet and watch as the fire continues to eat away at it before looking down at my burned sleeve. "Ahhhh." I hiss as the wind touches the red raw skin on my arm. It's not blistering by any means but it's pretty red and stings.

A tremor nearly knocks me off balance, making me remember what our original mission was. "Oh god. The Cluster!" I sprint over to the hole and look down it, hoping to see the drill going down but unfortunately it's pretty dark and far down. "Damn. Alright, maybe if I fall straight down I can land on top of it and still catch them." I surmise before standing. "Alright it's going to be tricky but I should be able to—" Another tremor sends me falling back. "Oof!" I grunt as I land but just before I can get up, a shadow looms over me. "Huh?"

*SMACK*

* * *

Marcus falls unconscious from the large fist that hit him square in the head.

The giant fusion monster stands back up to its full height as the rest of its compatriots flow into the hole to go after the drill. The giant muscled up fusion monster stands in front of the knocked out hybrid for a bit before it finally stands next to the hole and jumps down the hole.

* * *

"I'm talking to the cluster?!" Steven questions loudly and in surprise after the bright light subsided and the voices calmed. After his and Peridot's failed attempt to destroy the Cluster using the drill, pain and visions racked his mind and body extensively until his gem activated his Astral Projection, allowing him to get a clearer feel for the Cluster. "But... how did I get inside your brain? Brains?" He asks confused at the idea.

"Have to... Want to... Need to... Must!" The Cluster continues to mutter again and again until Steven manages to make sense of the words.

"Wait! Please don't take form!" He begs for the Cluster to not do but it refuses.

"Form! Form! Form! Form! Want form! Want form! Form!" The massive gem weapon chants angrily as the light flares up again.

Steven covers his ears in an attempt to silence the loud voices but it stops soon after, along with the light. "Maybe instead of forming you could do something else?" He asks it.

"Form!" The light flares and the Cluster shards demand again, making Steven cover his ears again.

"Boy, you've sure got the one-trackiest mind I ever met."

"Need form!"

"Agh!" Steven groans.

"To be whole." The Cluster says in a slightly lower voice.

"Whole?" He catches that part from them. Just then the same gem shard that floated past him before floats past his view. "Oh."

"Have to…" He faintly hears the gem say.

"You're shards. You just wanna find the rest of your gems." He surmises. "But forming won't help you find the rest of yourselves. You'll just destroy the Earth!" He explains the consequences of them forming.

"No. No, no. No! No." The Cluster realizes what might happen and begins to have second thoughts.

"But if you wanna find other gems, there's so many of you right here! Look." He tells them and pushes one of the floating gem shards around him near another one. "Shard, meet shard."

"Have to…"

"Want to…" The two shards say to each other.

"See? You already have so much to talk about."

Much to Steven's elation, bubbles of light begin appearing all around as multiple voices from the different gem shards begin greeting each other. "Hi! Oh, hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Oh, hi!"

More light begins to form around the Cluster as all the shards begin getting to know each other. "This is great! You don't even need to form. You can just stay here!"

"Want to stay." The Cluster manages to say finally, no longer wishing to form. Steven smiles at the news.

"Steven?" A familiar voice says from behind. Spinning around, his eyes widen as for some reason he spots his brother suspended in the air just like him a few feet away.

""Marcus?! What are you doing here?"

"I don't know! I got knocked out by something up top and now I'm—"

"YOUUUU!" The loud booming sound of the Cluster yells, shaking the two to their very core.

They both cover their ears at the noise but a lot of the lights start to converge on Marcus. "Huh? What's going on?" Marcus asks as he hears multiple voices directed at him along with their flashing lights.

"Cluster? What's wrong?" Steven asks hesitantly to the gem fusion they are with. Many of the shards are dark and silent but a large majority of them seem to be focused intently on the older hybrid.

"Shatter… shatter… shatter… SHATTERER!" The voices bellow loudly and together one last time before the white fog like faces that were engulfing Steven before hit and completely cover Marcus.

* * *

Black.

That's the only color I see all around me. The surface I'm standing on is the same blackness but I can feel it under my feet.

"Hello? Hello?" I call out in hopes someone will answer but all I get is silence. "Steven? Are you there? Can someone please tell me what's going on?" I ask out loud but still nothing. My brother was here, or there or something with I think the Cluster but I don't know now. I remember seeing the white light go after me but now I have no idea where I am or what's going on. "This is really weird? Huh?" I begin to scratch my head but I notice something in my hand, or on the wrist more specifically. Actually I think in is literal here because I see a ruby red gem in the underside of my right wrist. "Wha-?" I question confused as I go to touch the gem with my left hand.

*SHINK*

"AAAAAARRR!" I yell in pain as something blurs past me and cuts through me. My hand by reflex covers the point of pain origin. As I take it away, I see the gem again, cracked. The pain flares up as the crack increases before it shatters all together. "Arh!" I grunt in pain as a jolt of pain is sent through my entire body, making me fall on one knee. My breathing comes in deep ragged breaths as the ruby disappears. "What the hell?!" I gasp before standing up. I look around for the blur but I don't see a thing, especially not in this empty void I'm in. My search leads me to a new discovery however as I see another gem on my knee.

*CRACK*

I don't have time to see what it is before a massive force slams into it; shattering it on contact and making my knee go the wrong way completely. I fall down and wail in pain for a few seconds before everything returns to normal. "What the fuck is going on?!" I curse and get back onto my feet. I search around frantically against around me for the blur but their's nothing.

*Shink*

"Ar!" I grunt as another slash hits me just behind my left shoulder. On reflex next a pair of fire wings appear on my back as I growl in anger. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

*Shick*

"Cruh!" I let out a strangled yell as something enters my back and out my front. The force of it lifts me off the ground and into the air, leaving me suspended there for what feels like eternity. Looking down, my eyes widen as I see a green sword sticking out of my chest.

"Right here." A chilling, deep, quiet and yet familiar voice whispers into my ear before tearing the sword from me and it disappears.

I fall onto my knees weakly before slowly standing back up. My body heals from the rapid scene changes but the mental anguish is making me feel even worse. As I shakingly get to my feet, my vision shifts for a second until the depth perception of my right almost disappears. I try to blink away the feeling, another pain tears through, this time in the back of my legs. I go down onto my knees and my head dips down in pain at everything I've been through. I let out a weak groan before a pair of feet step in front of me.

Slowly a hand reaches down and picks my head up by the chin. On my knees, body and arms limp, my eyes widen in horror as I see what's been tormenting me. What's been giving me such pain in such a quick amount of time. The sadistic smile she gives me is something I thought never to have ever seen in my entire life.

"M… mom?"

She doesn't respond, she only smiles. Slowly she lifts one of her swords and aims it at my face. Weird thing is its not aimed directly at one of my eyes, but instead just to my right. It only takes me the fraction of a second before I make the haunting realization why my depth perception is off.

My right eye is my gem.

Ever so slowly, she pushes the blade closer and closer until I see the tip disappear from my view… and I feel a pressure against my head. "Nnng." I grunt as I try to pull back but using her other hand she holds my head firm as she applies more pressure. The pain gets worse as she digs the blade deeper into my gem. The sound of cracking becomes audible as I watch the blade disappear further into me. A tear goes down my eye as she's on the verge on the completely shattering it.

With one final grin and a firmer grip on the handle of her katana, she thrusts.

* * *

"What are you doing?! Please stop!" Steven pleads as he grabs his brother's shoulders and shakes him, trying to snap him out of whatever spell the Cluster put him in. From the horror ridden expression, mouth agape, slack body and the tears flowing down his eyes are anything to go by, it's not good at all.

"Shatter! Shatter! Shatter! Shatter!" The Cluster chants repeatedly.

"Nh." Marcus grunts as something else happens and his body goes ridged and more tears flow.

"What?! Why?! Why do you want to shatter him?! What did he do?!" He pleads to them.

"Shatterer… Shatterer… Shatterer…!" They continue to chant.

"But… why do you want to shatter him?! He never broke any of you!" He tries to explain all around but the light around Marcus isn't dissipating.

The light starts to fluctuate slowly but it soon turns to more rapidly until it flares to blinding measures in one final shout. "SHE SHATTERED UUUUSS!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!" Marcus shouts as more pain racks his body, forcing Steven back.

"Nooo!" Steven shouts as he tries to help his brother but can't do anything to help properly. It's also what the shards said that makes him confused. "Wait… she? But… he's not a girl. Why are you—" Steven begins to question but he spots something on Marcus that makes his eyes widen in realization.

* * *

"… _Steven… she told me how many Gems my mom… how many she… shattered. So many Gems Steven."_

* * *

His eyes widen as he realizes just what some members of the Cluster are talking about as he stares at the green gems on his arms.

Jade… Marcus's mom… shattered many gems in the war… and now the ones that she shattered here they want revenge.

Marcus's breathing starts to go ragged as the memories torment him even more so.

"Wait stop! He's not his mom! He never did anything to you all He only inherited his moms gems, just like I did mine!" He shows by pulling up his shirt to reveal his own gem. "He has the gems but he never hurt any of you! Please stop hurting him!" He pleads around him and for a second the lights start to lessen and Marcus seems to be a bit more at ease. "He's my brother." He looks down sadly. "Please, he never meant to hurt any of you. He's not her."

Everything seems to lessen and the overall grim atmosphere around Marcus lessens. The shards start to analyze Marcus a little bit more and realize what Steven says is true. The way how he is acting towards the memories he faces, plus the fact that the subconscious form that takes place is not the true female form they experienced shatter them, but instead this male organic being.

Finally, after close examination and pleading from Steven, they've finally stopped their attack. The light surrounding Marcus dissipates and the look of pain on his face dissipates. He breathes a sigh of relief at his brother no longer being tormented. The next second later, his form starts to flicker off and disappears entirely. "Huh?" He questions at his sudden disappearance but the light around him from all the shards this time subsides before returning.

"Can't stop!" The Cluster wails in anguish. "Going to form! Can't stop! Going to form! Help! Help! Help!"

* * *

Around an hour passes and they succeeded with the Cluster. The drill manages to pull itself out of the hole using the smaller mechanical arms equipped onto the machine. As soon as it's out though, the machine being on its last legs collapses in a heap, making the two occupants inside tumble out and onto the ground. They breathe in relief at finally being back on the surface but once they get up, Peridot hugs Steven.

"You did it!" She exclaims happily.

"We did it together." He corrects. "And it was great!" And says. Before anymore can be said, the sound of the warp pad activating gets their attention. Looking over at it in the distance, they spot the Crystal gems have finally returned with Garnet carrying the still unconscious Lapis. Both of them run over to give them the good news. "Guys! You're back! I-is Lapis okay?" He asks her worried after seeing the unconscious gem in her arms.

"She'll be fine." Garnet reassures him.

"Hey, where's Marcus?" Amethyst asks as she looks around.

"Please tell he's not in there." Pearl hopes as she points to the charred remains of his helicopter.

"Oh no! Marcus!" Steven cries out and takes off to the hole. He runs over to where they came out and looks around for any signs of his brother. He spots some prints and scratch marks around the hole they came out of that don't belong to the drill. Following them, he finds the tracks leading towards the barn with the door slightly ajar. Not hesitating, he goes over to the door and forces it open before glancing inside. He smiles as he spots something and goes in.

"So what happened exactly? Did you both destroy the Cluster?" Pearl asks Peridot as they walk to the drill.

"Oh it was touch and go for awhile but then Steven—"

"Ah Aaahhhhh!" The kid in question shouts in distress.

"Steven!" All the gems cry out his name but what happens next leaves them baffled.

Steven goes flying out of the barn, tackled to the ground by Marcus. Steven pulls out his shield just in time to block a sword strike from Marcus as he brings his blade up and down. The clang of metal pierces the air as he repeatedly slashes at Steven again and again with such ferocity. Steven is scared witless and Marcus has a look of teeth gritting tear stricken rage.

"Marcus! Stop! What's wrong?!"

"You won't shatter me! You won't shatter me! I won't let you shatter me!" He yells at the kid as he continues to slam his sword down on him.

"But I don't—"

"I won't let you!" He interrupts Steven and grabs his shield with his left hand and moves it away. He prepares to stab him but something stays his hand.

"Marcus no!" Pearl shrieks.

"Hold it man!" Amethyst wraps her whip around Marcus's arm, making him look at her in anger. "What's gotten into- Whoa!" With a jerk of his arm, he flings Amethyst towards him and with his left hand he backhands her away once she gets close enough. She goes flying and slams into the side of the barn before falling to the ground weakly.

"You won't take me." He growls darkly before turning back to Steven. "You'll never take me." He says once final and turns his blade into the reverse grip. "You won't!" He brings it up over his head.

*BOOM*

"Arh!" Marcus suddenly is thrown off of Steven, his swords flying away and embedding itself into the barn door.

Steven breathes heavily as the others come up to him to check if he's alright. Garnet sets Lapis down next to Steven before too checking on him. He waves them off that he's alright but it's what saved him that gets his attention. All four of them look back to see Peridot standing there with her Anaconda in her hands, the barrel smoking as she breathes heavily from the action. Her hands shake from the shot against someone she cares about and the weapon falls from her hands, clattering to the ground.

"Uhh." Attention is brought back to the attacker. Marcus lies on the ground, a hole in his right shoulder as he stares into the sky with his breathing ragged. His hand covers the wound but it doesn't detract the pain he feels, but it does snap him out of it. "What… happened?" He weakly asks. Steven, ignoring the others, walks up to him and kneels next to his brother's head, coming into his vision. "Steven… I'm sorry." He apologizes and prepares to say more but Steven nods and places a hand on his hand holding his wound.

"Marcus…" Steven begins, his heart panging with guilt as he sees the dried tears streaks on the already healing hybrids face. "What happened to you? What did they do to you?" He asks.

A blank look graces Marcus's face before a single tear flows down from his eye. "They… showed me Steven. They made me see… feel… being shattered…" The gems get an uneasy look about them at the description. "Steven…!" His left arm comes up and grabs Steven's shoulder before pulling themselves close to each other. "My mom… shattered so many gems!" He cries out before his body shuts down altogether, uttering one last phrase before his eyes start to drift close.

"I… felt… them…"

* * *

 **Just wanna make it clear everyone, Jade DID NOT shatter all the gems in the Cluster, only a good chunk of them. That would be too much even for her, but either way it looks like they still have bad memories of what happened and took it out on her son by mistake.  
**

 **I had made a few changes to the original plan I was going for this chapter but only small changes, like the bullet, probably the ending too. Not satisfied with the ending, maybe I could have added a bit more context but I'm not going to hold it up anymore. In any case I'm sorry to say those of you following this story but the train of chapters I was working on have come to a stop. Gotta get to work on the rest of my stuff you know?**

 **By no means is this going to be stuck on hiatus. I will work on this on occasion but I gotta put some effort into my other pieces. I don't want to make it seem like I'm going to abandon any of my work for anything so it's high time I get back into it with all my other stories. Sorry to leave you all like this after that ending though and I've got special plans for over the next few chapters but it's something I got to do. Sorry ya'll.**

 **Onto the guest reviews:**

 **XxGuestxX: (Answers in order)** That is as good a question as many for everyone, including myself, in which I need to come up with one. Possibly. Probably not; I'd kill to see a picture of something like that; not with my character though but I wonder if there is ever going to be something in the canon show that may inspire that to happen. That's a possibility but it's something I should put more thought into. The Iron Kings are not done. They will eventually make an appearance again in the future but how much of an appearance and how much of an impact they'll make, that I'll leave your imagination until it is put into words.

 **Okay it was one guest reviewer but still gave a lot of questions. Thanks. Anywho, thank all of you for your reviews**

 **There is though one last question I wish to ask you all and I hope gets positive reception and encouragement. I know I have just released a new story only a few weeks ago but what would you all say to me working on a new story.**

 **A Code Lyoko story.**

 **Thank you all, fave, follow, review, and as always, have fun reading.**


	61. 59 Same Old World

' _This seems… unreal. I can't believe I'm here after what I did. I shouldn't be here. I should have gone somewhere else but… I don't know where to go. I have no idea where I can possibly go.'_ I sigh as I stare into the sky. I've recovered since my… actions, but the gravity of everything I've done has started to sink in. I could go. I should go but like my thoughts have been hounding me since I awoke, I have no idea where to go. I only know of two places I could go and neither seem the best option. _'Steven's been accepting of me since what I've done but I still can't shake the feeling. I wish he—'_

"I thought you left?"

I'm knocked out of my thoughts from Steven's question. I knew he was coming up so I'm not surprised but still curious why he's talking to be despite everything I've done. After I couldn't really leave, decided to just sit here and think. "I was leaving, then I realized I've got nowhere to go. Who knows what they would do to me back home after what I did to Jasper? I can't go back to Homeworld and I can't stay here." I sadly tell him. When I went back home after Marcus and Steven freed me from that cursed mirror, just thinking about it makes my hand clench, and they fixed my gem, I thought I was going to be happy when I made it but… I was gone for so long. So much had changed and I couldn't understand just how everything works now. The technology has improved and changed so much, but so have the gems. _'It was so different. I didn't fit in.'_

"Sure you can!"

"… What?" I ask, looking towards Steven confused.

"You can totally stay here, it doesn't have to be here here. You can live anywhere! You don't have to stay in Beach City if you don't want to." He explains further. "Ooh! You could live in Surf City or Sea City, Aqua Town, Bayburgh, and that's just the places I know of off the top of my head. I could show you around. " He names things off his fingers.

"Really?" I ask, a bit of in me now of the idea there's more that I can go to.

"Yeah, we could find you a new place to live. I really only know the tri-state area but my phone has a global positioning system." He says as he pulls out a small device. _'Tri-state?'_ I forget the thought and focus on us going.

"Oh, Uhh, okay, let's go look." I stand up and so does he.

"Ready Freedy?"

"My name's Lapis." I don't know why he continues to give me names when he knows my real one. Like that Bob the first time. Still I sit down in order to allow Steven to climb on my back. I stand back up after he's on me. "You okay like this?" I ask him and he nods. Just before I take off with my wings formed, I take another look around the place and we fly into the skies.

"Whoa!" I hear Steven cry out on me from behind but it's not scared or agony. More like surprise and excitement as he grips me harder. It feels good to back in the air again and with Steven along it feels better. Nice to have some company now up here. His starts to cry out in a more excited manner as I steady us in flying. Once I settles or calms, I bring up something I notice.

"By the way, I saw all that broken stuff around that tower I was sitting on. What happened?" Back at that tower I was sitting on, the landscape seemed more like it was meant to be peaceful, and green, but that broken machine and metal pieces littering the whole area, along with black charring to go along with it. Seemed odd and out of place.

"Oh yeah, that was Marcus's helicopter. He crashed it after we saved you from Jasper but he's… he's fine now." He explains. As I remember the wreck, now that I see it does sort of resemble that contraption he was using. Before I can ask more he continues, "So, how about this? You could live out here in the country; there's no noise, no rules, and it'd just be you becoming one with nature." He explains as we pass several things below us, including some buildings that look like what we just left before.

I decide to get a much closer look at all this if this is going to be my potential home. I angle down towards the ground, swooping in until we go past the large bushes and see the ground. "Why would I want to do that?" I ask him I examine everything curiously. I've never really seen anything like this before so while he says 'nature', I'm not really sure.

"It's fun." He answers. "If you live with these trees, you could build a giant bird nest and have squirrels for pets! You could eat acorn pie every night, and when it gets hotter or rains, you would be protected by these nice leaves."

"Leaves…" I breathe as I watch these trees pass us. There's so many around us and I wonder what their purpose is. _'Nothing like the machines Homeworld use.'_ Having enough time to look, I fly us back up. I push past more of the leaves in the trees and go above them so we can see a lot more.

"Whoa, Lapis, look at this! This leaf turned orange." He shows a leaf he grabbed in front of me. He's right. It is orange, while some of the others are green for some reason. "This means the season are changing from summer to fall. Soon, it's gonna happen to all the leaves on all the trees."

"Wow." I moan in amazement. Definitely haven't seen anything like this before. _'They just change? Just like that? Huh.'_

"So, what do you think?" Steven asks.

"Hmmmm, I'm not sure." I reply. I've been alone for a long time as it is. While I'm not expecting friends anytime soon to be with, I don't think nature and I would agree.

"That's okay, there's plenty of places we haven't been yet. Come on!" He points elsewhere ahead of us. Shifting my flight, time passes as we head further along through the air.

At first I'm not sure what it is what we're looking for but something starts to take shape that I feel would probably belong on Homeworld. "What's this?

"This must be Empire City. Isn't it cool?"

"It's very bright." This is so… big. The structures remind me of some of the ones used by Homeworld but these aren't as big or… sleek I guess you could say.

"Yeah, that's why they say, 'What happens in Empire city never sleeps.'" _'But all gems don't need to sleep. Except Marcus. I remember him having to do that after he helped me escape and then I…'_

"So, what does happen in Empire City?" I ask, not wanting to remember my little stint with the ocean.

"Well, let's see. If you lived here, you could get a cool apartment, and be a single gem taking on the big city. You'll have a fun job at a local coffee shop and come home to a wacky roommate—"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I tell him. I don't know what a roommate is, or a coffee shop, or even an apartment.

"Awww." He moans sadly at my lack of information.

Looking back away from us, we start passing the city and I see something else further in front of us. "Hey, what's that shadowy place right there?" I ask as what looks like another city is further ahead but doesn't look as big as Empire City.

"Oh, that's Jersey." He tells me. This is city isn't as tall as Empire city and it seems more… drab and I think depressing. As we pass over it, I see a lot of machines along the ground going all over the place and no organics.

"Is it populated by machines?" I ask. Thanks to Marcus and Steven I know of the humans that inhabit this planet but this looks more like its only for machines.

"No, those are cars. They make a lot of smog though." We pass by a thick black cloud and while it doesn't affect me, Steven coughs from it. I angle away so we don't hit anymore of these pollution clouds. "You'd like it in Jersey. The people here seem to hate the Earth, too. I think Marcus would like it here too."

"Quit flyin' in our sky, you mooks!" Someone yells from below and tosses a large shoe towards us. I dodge it easily enough.

"Nevermind. I think he'd beat that guy up."

"He would." I agree. We share a laugh at the idea of our friend doing that. He always seemed especially protective of Steven and I. Not wanting to deal with anymore flying clothing, I take off higher into the air with Steven past some clearer white clouds.

"Wow, Lapis! It's so beautiful up here." Without the bleakness that Jersey seemed to cast, Steven now sees the rapidly darkening night sky in a clearer sense.

"Eh, it's alright, I guess I can see why you like it." I reply. Being able to do this all the time, you get used to it but since it doesn't look like he can do it at all like I can, I can see why he's amazed. A thought surfaces that I think he might like. I flex my wings to get ready. "Hold on!" I warn him and push us faster.

He grips he tighter as we push further ahead quickly and in a small flip, I do a loop and feel Steven fall off me. Without missing a beat I grab his arms before he gets too far from me. "Whoa!" He yells excitedly as he holds on.

"Check it out." I shout as I hold Steven as well by his arms.

"Woohoo!" He whoops as we continue to fly through the air. Soon we start making our way over the ocean and the clouds start parting. "Hey, we made it out all the way over the ocean. I wonder how far out we are?" He asks and considering I can't see any more land, pretty far out. _'Geez, how fast was I going?'_ Before I can answer my own question, my eyes stop on particular plot of land that seems familiar. "Oh, cool, the Galaxy Warp." My eyes dilate as the location becomes clear. _'That… place. The… Galaxy Warp. It's there… It's right there.'_ My body starts to feel numb. The memories of that spot. _'So close… I was so close for so long! It was within arms reach. My chance to escape was right THERE and I couldn't—'_ "Lapis, Lapis, I'm slipping! I'm gonna—" My hands reflexively clench again as Steven's voice cuts through my thoughts. He almost slipped out of my hands while I sulking in my own mind.

"So-sorry, I'm sorry." I apologize sadly. Looking back at the warp, I decide to land there, despite some… bitter memories. I don't want to accidentally drop him again. We land on the edge of the structure before I step closer to the middle. "This I where I was abandoned." I tell him as I make my way up the stairs. I hear Steven walk up behind me but being back here feels almost like I've never left. _'I was here for soooo… long.'_

"What happened?" He asks. _'I already told Marcus… maybe I can show Steven.'_ My hands move out to my sides and I channel the water around us. Control of the water means I can manipulate it in any way I want. I can feel it, move it, shape it and make it do my bidding. It's a powerful feeling… but lately I haven't been feeling as powerful with it after… after… her. I can feel the water peaking over the sides and making its way around us. The water climbs above and forms around us, both as walls and the floor around us is covered by the water. "Whoa!" Steven says in awe at the actions but I'm not done yet. As we stand in front of the main Galaxy warp pad, I focus the water and it hardens, turning it into ice and making it as clear as… a mirror. "It's like a mirror." He comments like in my thoughts. Focusing on the mirror in front of us, I let the memories flow, allowing them to be seen.

' _It's time I showed him.'_ With the water over the broken pad and ready, I show him what happened. "It was thousands of years ago. I was only meant to visit for a short time," The picture shows a peaceful looking green earth, but suddenly it turns into chaos with explosions and gems running all over the place. "But I got caught in the middle of the war. It was awful! I tried to run but… A gem ambushed me before I could escape." I could still feel their fist as they attacked me straight in my gem when I turned to fly away. I should have been more prepared but I was too late and "I lost my form and I was picked up by a Homeworld soldier and confused for a Crystal Gem and used as a tool." It was so weird and messed up when I was forced into that cursed mirror. I could only see in one direction and I couldn't do anything else outside of it. The constricting feeling of being trapped in it was horrible. Now… its an all too familiar feeling. I show Steven when they picked my gemstone and placed it on the back of the Mirror. "They'd asked me, 'Show us your base!', 'Where is your leader?'… I didn't know. I couldn't say I'm not one of them as you and Marcus saw when we met. It soon became clear as the war progressed that there was no hope in stopping the rebellion. All of the Homeworld Gems fled," Through my limited view I remember them fleeing through the Galaxy Warp and flying saucers ships they had, "And in all the panic of escaping Earth," I swallow as I remember being dropped. Then the stomping.

*CRACK*

Then the cracking. That horrible cracking feeling of your very life force tear almost completely in half in one single moment. I was lucky they didn't step on me more or else. "I was left behind." I continue regardless. Even broken, hurt and abandoned, I remember a bright flash of light pierce through the skies, the nothing. "And there I stayed. Freedom in my sight, but out of reach for ages, until I was found." For so long I watch the sky and I was powerless to move even an inch. Until that Crystal Gem Pearl found me and took me.

But that's all I can show. The memories, the action are too much. I shake as the water flows away and I collapse onto my hands and knees. "Are you okay?" Steven asks me, coming up to me.

"I'll be fine. Let me take you back." I reply once I'm good again.

"You sure you don't want to take a minute?" He asks a little worried.

"Thanks, but it's fine. I just wanna get outta here." I start smiling to show him I'm okay. In reality it still hurts but he doesn't need to worry about that now. It hurts but… it's the past and he's here with me now.

"Okay." He agrees and gets on me again before I take off into the air and away from this place.

I fly us for a bit in silence but the memory of what happened still stings. "For a moment, I really felt like things were different, but they're not. No matter where I go, I'm trapped."

"But you're not. You're not underwater, you're not in a mirror. This time, you're free!" He tries to make me feel better.

"But I'm still on Earth." I counter.

"Yeah, but nothing is still on Earth. Everything's always changing. The leaves, cities, even Jersey changes. My dad says the rest stops used to be pretty gross, but now they have sushi. This isn't the same world that held you prisoner, not anymore, and I know it doesn't feel like home but maybe that can change, too." He explains. _'So things change all the time on earth then. Huh…Change… maybe… change.'_ The sun is starting to come back up and before long we make it back to where we first left. I land in front of the large building and put Steven down. "I know you can't go back to Homeworld, but if you stay here, it'll be your choice to stay here." He hands me the leaf he showed me earlier.

I stare at the leaf he gave me in my hand. It's supposed to be green and yet it isn't. It changed. "It's funny. For all this time I spent on Earth, I barely saw any of it."

"That's not funny. That's super sad." Steven thinks it is but I'm not really seeing it like that.

As I look upon the sun that starts to rise, I now realize that I now have the option of a whole literal planet to explore finally make my decision. I was only stuck in one part of it for so long and now… "I… I wanna see it." I tell Steven finally, a smile starting to form on my face. Not a fake one but a genuine one.

"Yeah?"

"I wanna stay here!" I say with a bit louder.

"Here? Like here here?" He asks and I nod.

"Yeah, here here!" I happily say now. _'I feel goo now! Really good! I don't feel sad anymore. Like I now have the opportunity to call my own as home! This is going to be—!'_

"Yes, 'hear hear' everybody." My thoughts halt altogether and my breathe hitches at the new arrival. "What are we talking about?"

' _P-P-PERIDOT?!_ ' My mind questions loudly in my head at that horrible technician in front of me. "You?!"

"Lazuli, nice to see you up and about." She comments like its no big deal when really I want to know what she's doing here.

"What are you doing here?!" I question out loud.

"This is my new home away from Homeworld!"

' _Her Home?!'_ I shake my head at the idea. "No, it's not! It's mine! Right, Steven?" I demand before looking to the small human. I expect him to agree but he looks really nervous.

"Hehe, oh, boy." He mutters uneasily but I don't know why. She shouldn't be here!

"Well still, good to see you up Lazuli. Now we just need Marcus and everything will be right as rain." Peridot looks at Steven. "Was that right? Is that how that goes?" She asks, where he gives her a thumbs up.

' _Wait, Marcus?'_ "Marcus? What about him? What happened?!" I ask Steven quickly. I was knocked out during the fusion battle but he seemed alright before I was unfused. To think that he wasn't there when I woke up seemed… odd. But I was so focused on leaving that I didn't think he'd bother with me leaving like that. Now that I'm staying, I think, now I'm worried if she says he's not up.

"Something… happened after we saved you." He hesitantly says, looking to the side for a second before looking back at me. "He had to regenerate from some injuries," I notice Peridot rubbing the back of her head. "And it usually knocks him out for a full day. Wait…" He says the last part to himself and turns to Peridot. "It's been over 24 hours. Shouldn't he be up by now?" He asks her.

She shrugs, "If that's the time frame, then yes." Now she looks worried. I don't like that. "But he's not. He's still sleeping on the barns upper floo—"

Before I can let her finish speaking, my wings form and I fly through the open doors and up. As soon as I am hovering above the next floor, I look around but it doesn't take me long to find him. "Marcus." I breathe his name and go over to him. My wings disappear as I land next to him lying on the ground. He is completely still and doesn't look to be alive at all. However as the silence becomes evident, I can hear the faintest movement of his breathing. "What happened to you?" I question to no one in particular. To see him now so vulnerable seems wrong. _'What happened while I was gone?'_

* * *

"Lapis?"

"…" She doesn't turn around or acknowledge her name being called by Steven. Instead she continues to stare at the still body of her savior on multiple occasions.

"Hey, Lazuli?" Peridot bluntly calls out and that seems to get a reaction. Lapis's hands clench violently and her wings sprout from her gem. Both gem and human duck back from accidentally spurring her ire and go back to the first floor. "I… don't think she likes me." Peridot points out the obvious.

Steven looks at her before looking to the top again. "Let's give her some space for now. Then figure out a way for her to like you so you two can live here together."

"I guess." She uneasily mutters before glancing up too. "I just hope Marcus will be fine."

"He will. With Lapis, I don't think we have anything to worry about." Steven leads the green gem away from barn.

* * *

 **Happy late Halloween everyone.**

 **I guess you could say this is a retelling of the episode but I hope you all like what I did. How many of you were surprised to see the point of view being Lapis instead of my OC? Thought it'd be a perfect opportunity to give her a bit of a spotlight seeing as all she's been through. Either way how you see it, it was… interesting writing from a completely different characters view, mindset and I hope I nailed her. The depressing feelings she has from her experiences, the isolation from being alone for so long, her entirely 'alien' aspect different from what she knows compared to earth, I hope I did her justice and at least made things interesting when writing this out. It also looks like after everything that Marcus has gone through, a simple regeneration session isn't going to cut it. What happens next for him remains to be seen. For now expect another Lapis focused chapter if you remember the next episode.**

 **Speaking of episodes, the new seasons coming out very soon, Nov. 10 if I remember correctly and I'm super excited for what's going to happen. Really hope we get tons of new airtime for the gems we've seen in the past, Lapis and Peridot being obvious from the sneak peeks but I do want to see what we got for Bismuth and even Jasper. I've got plans for the orange gem but I want to see what Rebecca Sugar's got first so I can figure out how to go from there. One thing I also heard though is I think that date is for the episodes to air on the Cartoon Network app. If that's the case, then I'm kind of screwed in that regard because my service provider can't let me use the app properly. All I get is random episodes instead of the On Demand function. Either way, I'll make do and hopefully see the new episodes as soon as they come out.**

 **Just to clarify I'm going to be working on my other stuff for the time being, just to let you all know of whatever time frame you might expect from that. Not much else is going on with me at the moment but a couple weeks ago I got with a bad allergic reaction to some medication and developed Hives. It sucked and was messed up for almost a week straight but now I'm starting to get a bit better. Still loopy and headaches at times but nothing that'll keep me down. Besides that I've been just doing some assignments for school, got COD: WWII, and heard the news on the new heroes for For Honor and I'm excited to see what the new Samurai hero is going to be like. The Ronin, or as the devs call them the Aramusha, looks cool, especially with the two swords. But I guess you already know that considering the weapons that Marcus use.**

 **Now for the Guest Reviews.**

 **XxGuestxX:** For so long since I couldn't directly respond to guest questions and reviews, this is as good as I can give at least. Thanks for the confidence on that fic idea. As for the time travel, in fact I've been talking with another author on what would happen if both Steven and Marcus were sent back in time. Let me ask you, how crazy do you think it'd be if both Marcus and Steven were sent back thousands of years into the past? More specifically, the Gem War for Earth?

And so it comes full circle. I was inspired from others to write again, and now that same for you. It puts a smile on my face to hear that my writing has inspired you to get back to writing as well. Hope things go well and you in turn inspire others to write.

 **Espada117:** Thanks for the compliments on my OC. I appreciate it. I'm not a major fan of both the Batman franchise and League of Legends so I only know the bare base parts of both. So since I'm not a hundred percent familiar of Bane and Warwick in all aspects I don't feel knowledgeable enough to make an OC based on them. However seeing as they are both big, strong and some might consider walking tanks, especially Bane, then I think I can find some possibility of use. No guarantees though.

 **You know speaking of reviews, I would also like to ask you all if whether or not I should keep answering only guest reviews this way, or if I should answer and address all reviews this way. Maybe someone with an account asks a question in a review and others wanna hear about it instead of me giving a personal answer you know? If it's still good like this, I'll keep going but if some of you want me to answer all of them here, or specific ones, let me know.**

 **Thank you all for your support so far. Hope things are going well for you all, have a great day and as always, have fun reading.**

 **Oh, also just in case I don't get a new chapter here before it, Happy future Thanksgiving.**


	62. 60 Barn Mates

"And then I'll say, 'Hey, as one refugee to another, it isn't so bad that we can't go back to Homeworld, am I right? Why don't we watch the sun come up and figure out what we're going to do with all this time, eh Lazuli?' And then she'll say, 'Yes Peridot, as impressed I was by you on the ship, I am even more impressed with your new compact look and capacity for friendship! I'm so glad we're going to live together!' Peridot, Facet 5." Peridot finishes talking into her device and turns around. "Let's begin."

"This isn't going to work." I cut her off before she could speak.

"Wait, what?" She mutters in confusion but I don't really care. She expected things to go the way she predicted in her little recording device but it's not that easy to me. Especially not to her of all Gems.

"I really thought I would be living alone here." I say. That's what I was hoping for here but now it doesn't look like it.

"Yeah, but this is even better!" Steven claims. "Oh here, how about this? I saw this on an episode of a TV show! I didn't see how it ended, but I'm sure it worked out right." He takes out a purple stick from his pocket and takes off the top, revealing another purple point to it. "We'll divide this place in half, you'll both have your own space." He begins drawing a short line on the floor using the stick thing. Don't know what it is but right now that's not my concern. "High ceilings, real wood floors, convenient location on the heart of the country; so what do you think, roomies?" He asks us as he finishes drawing and puts the top back on it. I am now standing on the right side of the barn and Peridot is on the left.

"I like the cut of your gem, Steven Quartz!" She speaks in such an approving manner, which infuriates me.

"No. No way!" I state angrily, not liking this arrangement at all.

"What's the problem? You're the one getting all the good stuff! You've got the propeller and paint cans on your side! You can do tons with those! Oooh, actually, I want the paint cans. You wanna trade something?" She asks like it's the easiest thing in the galaxy right now but its not.

"I don't care about paint cans. That's not the problem." I dismissively state like it should have been obvious.

"Bah…" Peridot moans in confusion.

"What's wrong, Lapis?" Steven asks.

I sigh as they both don't seem to get what's the problem. "It's HER." I state harshly towards the green gem, hopefully making the problem as clear as day.

"Egh?!" She yelps in confusions as my stare makes her back away. _'Good.'_

"She's the problem." I say, my anger starting to come out full swing at how much I despise her. "I can't stand the thought of looking at her everyday. She's the one who dragged me back to Earth!" I remind them of one big problem. _'Homeworld may have been drastically different from what I remember, but maybe, just maybe I could have done something to help fit in and that chance was completely taken from me when she took me to this dirt ball!'_

"Hey, it wasn't my idea! I was headed to earth and I needed an informant! It should have been a simple mission. Things didn't exactly work out for either of us." She defends herself and tries to make it seem like I care about her and how it didn't work out for her.

"You used me like everyone else did!" I furiously state.

"But it's not like that anymore! It's different now - I'm different."

"It's true, Lapis!" Steven comes up and joins her side. "Peridot has really come into her own since she's been living on Earth."

"I sabotaged my own mission! I helped save the Earth! I even yelled at Yellow Diamond! She's probably sending a whole fleet to find me and shatter me right now. I'm kind of a big deal; a big Anti-Homeworld Deal!" She tries to explain herself to me what she's done, but it doesn't matter. What matters is what she did to ME, and that isn't going away anytime soon.

Ignoring her, I move in front of Steven and give him my best smile despite who's here. "Steven, I don't think this is gonna work." I softly and gently say to him.

"Ahhhh, ummmm, maybe we could put up a curtain?" He proposes another solution. I give Steven a patient smile at his means of trying to make this work but it's really not. I go outside and flare up my wings to go to the silo that I was sitting on, as Steven called it.

"Hold on!" Before I go, I turn right around and fly up to the top. "You're not getting him!" I call back and grab Marcus by his shoulders and drag him a few feet until he's fully on my side. I know this line situation isn't going to stick, but if it does, which I highly doubt, there is no way he's going near her. Once he's settled I go ahead and make sure he's comfortable, as best I can in his state, before flying out back to my spot. I'd stay with him and make sure he's okay but I really really reeeeeally don't want to stay or even listen to that annoying green gem for even a second. If she's serious about changing, and she knows how protective I am of him, then even she's not stupid enough to do anything to him when he's resting, especially not with Steven there.

Once I land, I lay myself on the top and stare out into the cloudy sky. The wind gently breezes by and I find myself starting to relax in awhile. "Ahhh." I sigh and place my hands behind my head before letting my eyes drift close. I really need to relax after everything that's happened.

* * *

I don't know how long I've been laying here. Time kind of doesn't have much focus to me because of… everything that happened. Still, I continue to lay here, feel the wind on my form and the silence that I'm greeted.

Ever since I was trapped in the mirror, the silence used to be deafening to me but after I was trapped in the ocean with Jasper, it was then I realized just how much I missed the silence when she wouldn't shut up a lot of the time.

"Hmm…" I mumble a relaxed sigh as I soak in everything now, a bit of peace I find myself in.

"Hey Lazuli!

' _And there it goes.'_ My eyes shoot open as I find myself incredibly frustrated all of sudden.

"HEY Lazuli! HEEY!"

"UGgh…" I groan as that infuriating annoying gems voice cuts through my peaceful silence. I turn onto my side and cover my ears with my hands to try to drown her out. It helps some but knowing she's still there is annoying.

"Lazuliii, HEY!" _'She just won't stop.'_

"Lapis, are you up there?" Despite me covering my ears, I still manage to hear Steven call my name. Taking a quick glance down to see him, I form my wings before swooping down in front of him gently.

"Yes, Steven?" I ask.

"Go on." Instead of asking me something, which is what I was hoping for, he nudges Peridot. My concern for Steven is replaced with a scowl when I see the green gem hand me a paper.

"Steven did the outside, and I did the inside!" She says, mentioning her part with what I think she is proud of.

Looking at it, it's folded so I open it. With an unimpressed deadpan look, I read what she's written. "Sorry I interrogated you. You were just full of such useful information. That's a sincere compliment. Peridot." That's all it say inside. Without my outlook changing, I look up at them. Steven and Peridot look at me with a hopeful looking with the latter grinning a very wide grin. Wind blows against me, so I let the paper go, allowing it to fly off into air and I don't care where. Forming my wings, I fly back up to my spot without another word. Laying back against my spot, I get comfortable again, sighing when I am. "Well, that was pointless." I mutter as I stare back into the sky. However that only lasts for a short while before I get antsy and slowly look over the side. I glance down to make sure she's not down there. When she's not I look around a bit more and I sigh in relief when I see her and Steven walking back to the barn. "Phew!" I throw myself onto my back, hands tucked behind my head as I close my eyes again. _'I really don't want to be dealing with her right now. Just give me this moment of peace, please?'_ I ask in my head to no one in particular and will accept the peace as long as I can… which if Steven is still trying to help her, I may not get that long. "Ohhhh." I groan and cover my eyes.

* * *

"You can't see through those, right?" Steven asks.

"Actually, yes. But it's very blurry." I reply.

"Good to know." He says. Steven for some reason came by to the silo, alone thankfully, and asked me to come with him for something. Not wanting to refuse him the least bit, I went ahead with it, even when he asked me to cover my eyes for some reason. While he guides me with his hand, I use my wings to cover my eyes as much as I can as per his instructions. He said where he's taking me is a surprise so that's why I'm supposed to not be able to see. So I apparently don't ruin the surprise when I see it… but he's leading me to see it. _'Sometimes… I just don't get you Steven… and you Marcus.'_ I smile fondly at the memory of him. _'I hope you wake up soon.'_ "Well, here we are!" I'm knocked out of my thoughts as Steven speaks. Guessing this is my cue, I unfurl my wings and immediately regret it as I see Peridot here. _'I should be surprised, but I'm not.'_ My smile falters.

"H-2-Oh my GOSH! It's a smaller-than-an-average lake!" She exclaims with happiness. What she means is she's sitting in some sort of round rubber object in the middle of a small hole filled with water.

"It's from the hole we drilled. Peridot and I sealed it and filled it with water." Steven explains what it was but I'm not really… concerned with that as I stare at the body of liquid. I turn to Steven once he explains it before I turn back to the water with a disappointed look. Usually water would relax me but recent events have… damaged my liking of water.

"It's a gift for you. You know, 'cause water's your thing." Peridot clarifies as she gestures to what's around her, then chuckles. "Pretty good, right? The barn's out here in the country, but now you can get your moisture fix whenever. Do all that water stuff you do."

"…" I stare in disbelief at my apparent gift. "Water? Seriously?" I ask scornfully with a hint of anger.

"Yeah!"

"You do realize that I spent the last few months trapped under the ocean, right?" I remind her of that little fact I had to deal with. Alone. In darkness. Against Jasper.

' _The water was all around me all the time with her constantly forcing herself against me. All the time. No rest. Just… struggling.'_

"Sure… but I thought—"

"It was an endless, crushing darkness. Wet, and bleak, and suffocating. Water was the tomb I lived in for those months." The words come out as dark as I felt during those long months. Stuck in the mirror was bad… but I had quiet peace to myself. Malachite… was anything but quiet and peaceful.

"T-Tomb, you say?" After she sinks further into her little rubber tube, she repeats one of my words.

"Yeah. I'm kinda taking a break from water right now." I inform the both of them but the damage is done. Already this makes me feel a little tight in my chest at the memories. Breathing in, I sigh and mutter disdainfully. "But thanks… for the lake."

"Uhh…"

"Ugh…" Steven and Peridot give uneasy moans.

Looking to Steven, I reassure him of his uneasy look. "Don't worry, Steven. It's not YOUR fault." I emphasis the 'your' part because I'm sure it was her that did it. I turn to Peridot one last time, scowl at her before spreading my water wings and flying away again to my spot.

It doesn't take me long to fly back to the silo and I take my spot laying down, again. _'That was so stupid._ ' I think on just what happened. _'Did she really think that a lake would be able to undo the damage that SHE did to me? If she never forced me to come here I would never—!_ ' I close my eyes and steady my breathing. I breath in and out a few times before calming myself down. _'Whatever. Doesn't matter now._ ' Not wanting to dwell anymore on those thoughts, I try to focus on something else… or someone. Remembering Marcus earlier, I recall some of what he did for me in the past. _'It was because of him and Steven that I was freed. They went against the Crystal Gems to help me… and Marcus still helped me. He fought that fusion and took me away from them. We talked… we bonded… and I almost betrayed him.'_ Remembering how stupid I was to think I could stretch one planets water supply to Homeworld of all places makes me down, then when I deliberately attacked Marcus?!

"Ohhhh…" I groan at the memory as I cover my face with my hands. That wasn't my best move ever and yet he still helped me. Even when I fought him and Steven, they both still helped me regardless of what I did. They fixed my gem and everything. I was able to go back home because of them. Granted things still didn't work out on Homeworld but still. They gave me that opportunity to go back and I'm grateful for them. Even when I came back Marcus still did what he could to try to protect me; warning me to move when he opened fire on Jasper and Peridot. Then… "Uhuhuh." A shiver runs along my form as I remember that… thing he turned into. _'It's been a long time since I saw him in that and I hope he was able to keep it under control since then. He said it doesn't speak for him; I hope he was able to make that true.'_ Then when he and… Peridot, came to fight Malachite he still tried to first get me out before he was forced to fight.

I turn to my side and glance one last time back to the barn where he is resting. _'Please wake up soon, so I can at least know you're okay.'_ I let the last thought in my mind drift off as I close my eyes.

* * *

' _Why? Why do I keep doing this? I should have known. I really should have known but I guess I can't resist Steven.'_ I think as I stare blankly at Periot. She seems excited as she presents something to me with Steven behind her in a pose that emphasizes her with her little white box.

"Ta-dah!" She happily says and presents it as my look just slowly turns to anger at how close she slowly inches towards me, arms still outstretch holding the box. "See, the ribbon is even blue. I got yo number!" She winks at me. I don't like her winking at me. I continue to stare motionlessly at her, not moved in the least by how she talks, hoping she gets the message that I want nothing to do with this. Her grin falters after I don't do anything and after she glances to Steven, he shrugs. _'Please don't help her.'_ "Uh, here, I'll unwrap it for you!" She proposes instead and tears open the wrapping on the box as she talks. "When I was stuck here, Steven gave me this tape recorder as a gift and I didn't really get it at first, but it made me feel better." She explains as the wrapping comes off and reveals a small human device in her hands. I know its human because it fits what Marcus would use or have in his possession, and it doesn't look like something that Homeworld would us. "Just to talk about the weird stuff that was happening. It'll help you too!" She says and holds out the device towards me. _'…Seriously, she thinks that this… gesture is enough of an apology?'_ While they continue to smile at me, I continue to show no emotion at her. However seeing Steven continue to hopeful be to me, I'm fed up with this. _'What will it take to get it through her thick gem?'_ I think as I take the offered device. "You, umm, press the button to record, an- and then you talk into it!" She nervously instructs to me to do. They both continue to smile at me expectantly but this… it's time I stop this.

Pressing the button on the device like she says, I bring it to my lips, "I don't want your garbage." I firmly and angrily tell her. _'I. Am. Tired of this!'_ Holding my hand out with the device in hand, and crush it.

It crumples easily enough in my hand as it breaks apart right in front of us. Peridot's eyes widen as she watches the broken device be destroyed right in front of her. I toss it past her as she watches it flinchingly without blinking once it lands behind her. The look on Steven's face is one I see as horror and shock at my action, but I really don't get why he cares. Something pops out of the broken pieces of the device and that seems to snap her out of it.

"NNGUH! What, were you trapped in a tape recorder too?!" She angrily states. _'Trapped?! What does she know about trapped!'_ My hand clenches and I can feel my rage starting to heighten. "Look, I get it, you know?" She calms down and begins speaking normally. "You're confused! You can never go back to Homeworld. This place, doesn't exactly feel like home yet." She gestures to around us. "You're alone, no one could POSSIBLY know what that feels like!" My eyes narrow at what she's implying by her words. "Oh wait, I do!" The anger comes back. "We're the same, except…! You don't have to be alone." The anger dissipates and she turns to look at me, I guess hoping my outlook will change but it doesn't. I still glare at her, completely unconvinced by her words. _'I don't care if she understands me.'_ "So tell me then," She continues with a desperate tone. "What do you want from me?! And whatever that is, I'll do it." She finishes with a sigh.

I grit my teeth at what she asks, and what she's willing to do. _'You'll do it, huh? Fine!'_ "I want you, to LEAVE!" I yell at her, finally and hoping now that she gets it's through her thick gem that that's what I want from her. I don't want to see her, or hear her, or be near her in any scenario at all! She's been trying to show some misguided effort to reconcile our problems from the past but now I'm tired of it I want her to know I DON'T WANT HER HERE!

She flinches at my request, but regains herself soon after. "Okay." Thankfully she doesn't argue, she concedes and starts walking away. "Oh, wait. I almost forgot something." For some reason she turns right back around and heads to the barn in a sprint.

* * *

Barely a minute passes as Steven and Lapis stare at her where she disappeared to in the barn. Some rustling can be heard inside soon after but she soon comes back out the front as she finishes strapping something to her chest. "Alright then, I'm off." She says as she passes them and finishes strapping the holster to her chest with her signature weapon in it.

For a second, Lapis is mentally happy to see the green gem finally leaving her sight for good but her eyes widen as she sees the weapon she has one her. "What are you doing with that?" She asks in a low voice, her anger reaching new heights at the familiar weapon that belongs to… him.

"Hm?" Peridot murmurs and stops at the question asked before turning back to Lapis. Seeing where her eyes stare at, she looks down at her own weapon on her chest. "This?" She asks and pulls out her revolver. "It's mine. Marcus gave it to me after I showed him I was a Crystal Gem by insulting Yellow Diamond to her face." She explains what it is and how she obtained it with a fond smile on her face. It truly was something she appreciated by him. The way how the human weapons acted and worked to her when she first used it was exhilarating, despite the archaic differences between it and the rest of Homeworld technology but after taking into considerations the benefits to the old type of weapons, she sees what they can bring. Her memories of the damage that the explosive ordinance did to her ship when she was bringing it close to landing on the surface were pretty evident of just what sort of damage those material ballistic projectiles and explosives could do when the rest of the Crystal Gems energy attacks were rendered inert. Now, after the care Marcus did to give her one of his personal weapons of choice… no way is she going to leave it out of her sight. Peridot then shakes her head of the reminiscing and starts walking again. "Well, if that's all, I'll be go- Hey!" She begins to holster her weapon but something whips forward and rips it out of her hand. On instinct she twists around and watches as a water wing from Lapis's back clutches the weapon and pulls it into her own hands. She stares wide eyed at the blue gems cross and dark stare at her.

She holds the weapon in her right hand with unblinking eyes toward its owner. "You expect me to believe, that Marcus would give YOU this?" She gestures to the weapon.

"Wha-But-He di—!"

"Shut. Up." She interrupts Peridot darkly with barely controlled anger. "I won't hear you lie to my face. I told you to leave already. Now go." She repeats her request from earlier and turns right around to head back to the barn.

"Wait, Lapis!" Steven calls out to the angry blue gem and goes to talk to her.

Peridot however goes numb deaf as she watches her walk away. Her face goes through several ranges of emotion, from surprise, to confusion, disbelief, sadness and finally… anger. _'I tried to be willing to put our differences aside Lazuli. I tried… I tried I tried and I tried to tell you I was different and you snubbed me away.'_ Her head dips down and a dark look crosses her face as she glances to the side of where the broken pieces of her tape recorder laid. _'You broke Steven's gift…'_ Her eyes bore into the back of the gems head as her hands clench tightly and her teeth grit. _'I won't let you TAKE MARCUS'S GIFT FROM ME!'_

Meanwhile, Steven continues to try to convince Lapis that Marcus did in fact give Peridot the gun. "Lapis, please. Don't do this. Marcus did giver her that. He made it for her for being a Crystal Gem and—"

"Steven," Lapis finally stops, "I get your trying to make things work between us but it's just not going—" Unfortunately for them, they were so stuck in their conversation they didn't hear the rapid thumping of the footsteps behind them.

"RAAAAAHH!"

"Ahh!" Lapis yelps in surprised at the green gem jumps up and latches onto her head.

"Giveitgiveitgiveit!" Peridot demands as she holds strong atop the blue gems head as she reaches for the weapon in her hand. Lapis for her part moves all over as she is completely blindsided by her attack and flails her arms to try to knock what's attacking her off. Steven for his part is completely stunned and surprised at the sudden change of events that happened. He stares wide-eyed and mouth agape at the two flailing gems.

Before he can say or do anything to try to stop the fight, with a triumphant smile Peridot grabs the weapon and throws herself off Lapis. She rolls on the ground a few times before turning right around with her weapon drawn and ready to fire in her right hand. Good thing to because Lapis is giving the mother of all death glares to the small green gem with her water wings out and the lake nearby bubbling, ready to form whatever its master wishes.

A standstill takes place, both Gems poised and ready to attack at a moment's notice. Steven finally snaps out of it and sees his friends close to fighting each other. _'I can't… I can't let them do this!'_ He thinks as he opens his mouth to speak.

"I'M SORRY!"

They freeze at the words, Steven and Lapis staring at Peridot with looks of surprise as her lips quiver over her gritted teeth. "… What did you say?" Lapis asks.

"I'm sorry! Okay?! I'm sorry I forced you to come here. I'm sorry I called a GREAT informant as a stupid way to compliment! And I'm sorry at my useless stupid gifts that just remind you of the bad things that happened to you! I'm sorry… FOR EVERYTHING I DID TO YOU!" Peridot yells at the top of her lungs. Once she finishes her confession, her breathing comes out in haggard, heavy breaths but her aim remains still on Lapis for the reason she still us poised to attack as well. Once Peridot gets her breathing under control, she narrows her eyes. "I truly am sorry. I'm not Homeworld gem. Not anymore…" She readjusts her grip on her revolver. "But if you think I'm going to let you take this from me… then you have ANOTHER THING COMING!" She yells the last part as loud as she can. Taking a moment to breathe, she squints her eyes at Lapis. "Afterall, isn't that something that Crystal Gems do? Fight… till the last… gem." She states firmly, and with conviction, leaving no room for argument.

Steven stares at her for a second in complete surprise. He's seen her be emotional and loud before but this is… different. He soon turns back to Lapis, who has a look of surprise on her face still but she soon purses her lips. His view switches between them as the tension in the standoff is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

After a few more silent moments, Lapis lets the water return and settle into the hole and dissipates her wings. In turn, Peridot puts down her revolver and holsters it across her chest. "I'll go Lazuli, but I won't be gone forever. I'm a Crystal Gem now and I'm going to let you cool off on this. I'm sorry for what I did, but I'm staying like you are. He gave me a job to do and while it… hurt to do it, I still have more to do, just in case." With her intentions made clear, she does Marcus's salute, fist to between her chest and left shoulder, about faces and starts walking away. As soon as she passes her broken recorder, she stops and looks down at it to the side. With a depressed heavy sigh, she continues walking without another look back.

* * *

' _She… she's sorry? She's… really sorry… about everything? I can't believe it. It's hard to believe.'_ I watch as Peridot walks away from Steven and I. It doesn't take long after she walks that she becomes a speck in the distance and disappears over a series of hills.

"Lapis…" I look down at Steven to see him still staring where she left. "She's trying, really, you know that right?" He says once he turns to her. Staring at the sad look on his face, I start to feel some regret over my… actions as of late.

"I… get the impression." I embarrassingly reply as I rub my arm. _'The gifts she gave me were ways to try to apologize but they didn't feel like it. Now… saying it straight to my face so… loudly… it, I think it finally hit.'_

"You were gone for a long time Lapis. Since then, I know her now. Not like how she was when she first came to Earth. I wish you could have at least gotten to know the new her instead of just not giving her a chance." Steven explains sadly. Looking towards the broken pieces of the device she seemed to cherish so much, the regret starts to hit me a bit more. "Now… I can't tell if even she'll forgive you." We both look down at the recorder.

* * *

Peridot continues to walk away from where she was before. After her… outburst towards the formally trapped Lapis, going away seems a good idea not just because she demanded she go but also for herself to cool off as well. That standoff wasn't exactly a good way for her and Lapis to try to reconcile their differences and the tension but Lapis forced her hand when she took something precious from her.

' _The recorder was one thing; my firearm was an entirely different matter. He gave me this because he trusted me with it after I proved myself to him. He gave me this as a symbol of being a Crystal Gem… and for my job.'_ At the memory of what she was tasked to do, now that she's out of sight of them, she sighs and stops all together. "I really hope you'll survive Marcus. If we have problems in the future with Homeworld, then we'll need your expertise." She mutters quietly as she glances back to where the barn is before walking forward some more. However it isn't long before she stops and a confused look forms on her face. "Now, where in the clod should I go?" She asks out loud and annoyed. With a hand cupping her chin, she thinks and contemplates. _'The weather patterns as Steven has taught me before look rather… bleak for things to still look good. I need to find shelter less I be forced to weather the… weather. From what Marcus has told me not many humans would take too kindly to taking me into their locations of living without a proper reason. He even made it clear that most humans don't really think my look passes fully as humanistic. Don't know why but he was very insistent. Where to go?'_ She questions in her mind as she turns in different directions to figure out where. _'I could go to the Crystal Gem base. I'm sure they won't mind me staying after I just saved their planet and all.'_

"Hm." I triumphant smirk graces her lips at the achievement, but then falters soon after as she slumps. "But then again, Steven was there all the time to make sure we didn't fight. Uhhhhg." She groans. Now that Lapis is back and Marcus is still incapacitated, the chances of Steven going back are not 100% logical. The Crystal Gems believed moving the unconscious hybrid's body too much in this state may not be such a wise move since none of them know exactly what's going on with him. "Hmmm…" She goes back to looking around until she remembers some other spots. "Okay, either the ancient gem ship I used to set a trap for the Crystal Gems in, or Marcus's living quarters… His home is closer." With her first choice in mind, she begins her trek to his home. "I hope he does not have any security measures in place. Not really looking forward to being sent into my gem anytime soon… and for too long." _'Now that I think about it, the ship is sounding a bit more tempting. No… I need to be close in case—'_

Before she can finish thinking, a whirring sound can be heard above her. Stopping confused at the sound, she tries to figure out what it is through the gray clouds above her. Her eyes widen in horror at what she sees pass them. "Oh no." She breathes quietly in a scared tone. Just as an orange light beams and hits her, she pulls out her revolver and opens fire.

* * *

Several gun shots go off in the distance, breaking Steven and I of our sour moods. "Huh?" He mutters in confusion at the sudden noise.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

"Oh look, she's coming back." Steven points out what the screaming is and true to what he says, Peridot sprints at an impressive rate given her size straight towards us. She looks really freaked out about something as she speeds straight towards us.

"They're here! Ruuuun!" She yells as she runs past us with her weapon in hand. Steven and I look at her confused as she continues to run towards the barn but a noise above makes us look upwards. Some kind of red colored machine with a cracked window becomes visible as it shines a ray of yellow light towards us.

"Run!" Steven gasps and repeats what Peridot said. Not wanting to deal with this thing, or leave Steven alone, we both run towards the barn with Peridot. It doesn't attack us while we're running and we make it inside safely next to a freaked out Peridot. Steven begins panting after the quick sprint we did. "What is that thing!?" He asks out loud.

"It's a Roaming Eye, a Homeworld tracking vessel! I told you, I'm public enemy number 1!" Peridot quickly explains from her flustered spot on the floor.

I roll my eyes at the information. _'Homeworld… why am I not surprised. I really am out of place on that plane. Don't recall anything like that before.'_ My thoughts are interrupted as the yellow ray of light from the Roaming Eye peaks through some of the wood boards above the barn. Peridot shakingly tries to reload her weapon. She opens the cylinder like I remember how Marcus did awhile back and pulls out the empty shells.

*Clink*Clink*Clink*Clink*Clink*Clink*

We all look at her with horrified and surprised expressions, including fear with her, as the shell casings fall and make audible noises on the ground. We freeze for a bit and wait for the Eye to attack at the noise… but thankfully nothing happens. In fact the light disappears at it moves away from shining through the wooden boards above. We all relax and breathe a sigh of relief at the light disappearing. Peridot stands back up and pats herself down looking for something but she soon realizes she doesn't have it on her. Surprise then sulking is what she feels as she groans. "Ughhhh."

"What's wrong?" Steven asks.

"I forgot the ammunition." She mumbles as she slaps her face and drags it down. "Stupid stupid stupid." She bangs her head a few times at blunder she feels.

"Heeeey. Don't worry about it. You don't have to worry about anything now that the ship is—!" Steven's attempt to make her relax suddenly freezes as the yellow light comes back, this time in full view of us. The Roaming Eye stares at us through a large broken hole in the side of the bar that's being covered by some cloth blanket. "Gone." He finishes his sentence but we don't stay long though as Steven and Peridot immediately run out of the barn and I follow. I want to keep it away from the barn as much as possible. Not with Marcus still unconscious inside. Our running and movement works as it immediately floats after us into the field. We stop and cover our heads as the ship passes over us again before it stops and focuses that annoying beam on us again.

"No, uh, ah!" Peridot stares scared at the machine above us a she aims her gun again in desperation at it but then remembers the lack of ammo. The machine starts to come closer to us as it's light starts to split apart before it starts to converge on us again. "This is it, Steven! They're going to wipe my precious grin off the face of this planet!" She cries out as she hugs Steven's arm.

"Stay behind me! I'll protect you!" Steven says as he covers her with his arm.

' _Alright, enough of this.'_ Seeing how it looks like its going to finally attack, it's time I intervene. I walk forward and stop once I'm in between them and the ship. Turning to the side, I see Peridot and Steven staring at me. _'Your determined, Steven… always have been. I guess if you really care about her, then I'll try to at least.'_ Turning back to the Roaming eye, it's light turns red as I get ready to destroy this thing. Not wanting to let the ship to attack, I concentrate and feel the water from their lake begin to take the form I want to make it. My water hand construct flows out and in no time at all towers above us all. _'I wanted to take a break from water after what happened with Jasper. Now… it feels… right again. And I need that right now in order to fight.'_ The wind whips around as the water shifts to form into what I want; namely my hand. I move it over the floating ship before it could react and with a flick of my finger the ship is hit hard. Before it can fight against me, my hand goes over it and with a flick of my wrist, I palm it straight into the ground with ease. The ship tears into the ground at high speed, embedding the majority of the straight into ground leaving only a small part of it visible. I smile at the ease I took this thing out while the they look in utter disbelief.

"Holy smokes…" I hear Peridot mutter.

"Steven!" A new voice calls out. Looking back, the rest of the Crystal Gems seem to finally join us as they sprint towards us.

"Holy Smokes!" The Amethyst repeats what Peridot said, only more loudly.

"Are you alright? We saw the ship and came as fast as we could." The Pearl asks in concern towards Steven, who nods and reassures them.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Lapis saved us… but, it looks like Homeworld really has it out for Peridot." Steven explains. _'Speaking of Peridot…'_

It doesn't take me long to look before I spot the green gem in question as she crawls away from us quietly. "Peridot…" I call her. As soon as I call her name, her hair stands on end and she freezes up. Slowly, she turns around to look at me staring at her. "… Are you okay?" I ask, now concerned. In truth, I was a little… quick to judge her after being gone for so long. She was so willing and tolerant at first to my insults and ignoring before but when I went for her gun, that's when I knew she changed. _'The Peridot I remember back on the ship was cold and calculating, didn't care about her equipment and would replace it the second it got damaged. She knew I could crush and shatter her with barely any effort on my part in less than a second. And yet… she fought me regardless. Granted it was a surprise attack but still. Now, I guess I can do what Steven's been telling me before and get along with her.'_ However she replies by giving me an incredibly wide and happy grin. "Um…" I nervously mutter as I turn away so they don't see my blush. I knew she was expecting me to finally accept her, somewhat, but still. I hear Steven chuckle at what I think to him is the progress we've made, but still I'm glad everything's alright.

Unfortunately, it still isn't that easy as the ship I crushed emits a sound. Everyone tenses up as a hatch opens up from what's left of it that can be seen and smoke pours out of it. A Ruby climbs out of the hatch and looks around. It's only when she turns close to our direction that we see her gem has replaced one of her eyes.

"Great." I groan as I put a hand to my face.

* * *

 **It's done… it's finally done. You all… have no idea how HAPPY and relieved I am to finally have this finished and I just… oh man. First of all, before I go talking about what hell I went through this last week, let me go ahead and get the review replies out of the way.**

 **Seruis:** Thanks. It was fun too going about someone from a different perspective for a change and I'm looking forward to the next couple chapters where I focus on our favorite blue gem.

 **Bomberguy789:** Yeah I was planning to go about answering here after some more thought. That way everyone can see the answers if their curious about it and such. Glad you liked the chapter as I did as well. As for the time travel story, all that was taken into account. Some examples of what I thought, how would Jade and Rose react if they were to meet their SONS from the future, and possibly know their own fates; saving Lapis from being placed in a mirror; and even saving many more gems during the Flash that turned nearly every gem on the planet into a corrupted monster. What I keep thinking is that the primary reason Homeworld left Earth alone was because they thought ALL the Crystal Gems were corrupted and not worth the fighting anymore. If too many Crystal Gems survived, then what's the possibility that Homeworld returns earlier, more advanced and slightly more powerful to finish them all off? All possibilities when it comes to time travel and it's going to be quite awhile before I ever come up with the idea to actually make that spin-off, but at least I won't have to think too hard in coming up with ideas for it.

 **M. 6:** Yep, poor him. He's gone through a lot and its gonna be soon we see what's going on in that head of his. At least now, he's got his own little guardian angel watching over him.

Yeah, allergies suck.

Yes I have. Not on mobile but I went ahead and bought "Steven Universe: Save The Light" for my Xbox. Man it's a fun game. I haven't gone full hardcore playing on the game yet because I don't want to finish it too soon and want to savor the feeling of playing as all my favorite gems and humans. Connie's a badass I feel. I'll usually play it when I'm bored and not working on anything else. Although the last time I played it, I got wrecked by the first boss. That giant saw mouthed thing with the little guys throwing wood in its mouth? Yeah, I was close to beating him but I waited too long and too many of them came out and kept powering him up so much and so quickly. Hopefully next time I do better.

 **JustinTheSpider:** Thank you very much, on everything. Yes I got CODWW2. After the last few installments went really hard on the whole sci-fi aspect, felt good to go back to its roots.

 **TheStoryWever:** We all have those moments. We're reading or watching a character on our screen and there are just moments where you just want to walk up to them, slap them, shake them and tell them they're being dumbasses and beat the ever living crap for being so stu… I'm still typing ain't I? Okay then well glad you liked the chapter and how I wrote everything. There is a reason for me not mentioning when who exactly was talking when. I feel like it would disrupt the immersion in a way if I outright state who's talking and such. If it gets too bad, say so and I'll try to correct myself.

 **XxSpades231xX:** They've been helping each other out many times over. It would be hard but Marcus would need to work very hard to make sure his brother doesn't have a breakdown when he needs him.

There are other ideas to do that I may be able to work with. They could be transported to a time when Rose and Jade didn't have kids, dropped in the middle of the Gem War, hell even crossovers with other fictions could work too, with some work.

I've always been dodging his relationships haven't I? Well, hopefully in the next few chapters things just might become clear… er… maybe.

I was going for the different perspective to trip you up. It was to go at first seem like it was Marcus that was talking in his own head but I feel like the revelation of it really being Lapis thinking and speaking would have been better.

 **Cf96:** Thank you.

 **Your business (Ch. 14):** It was one of the options I had at the beginning. But Pearl and Garnet?... Huh, you know I remember some moments in the show that may support that. **(Ch. 40):** I've been listening to that song like crazy lately. Might use it further in the future if I find the right moment… which I probably will.

 **Zcdragon64:** Glad you liked it all. Yeah, his wounds aren't just physical. That's already taken care of. It's his mind that's been hit pretty hard from the Cluster among other things. Soon, I'll make the announcement, or scene, where it cements the pairing so just be patient a little longer and you'll have your answer. I've thought about them fusing many times and if they were to, it'd be epic I can assure you of that. Just wish we had a list of all the kinds of gems that are going to be used in the show. Would make my life a whole lot easier.

 **Espada117:** Was happy to respond. And another hybrid that fights Marcus on par? Probably not in my main story, but I can see that being a spin-off story.

 **RaNd0Mk1D8o3I:** I'm happy I was able to hook you to my story so well. When I first started I didn't think I was going to get much popularity. How wrong I was. As long as the show keeps cranking out episodes, I'll keep cranking out chapters and plot as much as I can. Although I would do without the hiatuses. This last one was a dozy.

 **Guest (Ch. 38):** I've tried to find a balance at times to make him become super powered and crazy, but also at times to show how vulnerable he can be and how he's not invincible. He's good, but he's not that good and he has plenty of demons to keep him awake at night. That… was a perfect example on one.

 **Okay, and the reviews are done and now its on to me. I left this last because it's… it was messed up for me.**

 **Here's what happened folks. My Thanksgiving week wasn't as good as I was expecting. First off, I was stupid. I'm stupid in some areas, as you can see the content I can give you all, and that one area I messed up in happened to ME FUCKING DROPPING MY LAPTOP!**

 **I SET IT ON THE SIDE OF MY COUCH FOR A SECOND AND IT FELL! I almost lost EVERYTHING! Every single word you've all been reading, every single chapter I've written, all of it was on that computer and I nearly lost everything. To top it all off, the semester project essay and report I was doing was on that computer as well and I would have lost completely a week of straight days of constant writing to work on 12 to 20 page project. In one move, I would have lost every single word I've ever written since last year, and the work I've done for my final project for this semester of class.**

 **I'm not gonna lie. I cried. When I picked it back up and tried to turn it back on and got a blank screen of it turning on and nothing but black, my breathing was… quick and heavy. I cried that I may have lost absolutely everything I've ever written on my laptop but more so my project and this chapter.**

 **But in the end, my uncles came through and saved everything. They are experts when it comes to computers of all kinds and if there was anyone who could fix or recover all I lost, it would be them. It wasn't looking good at first. They inputted some codes to try to reboot the system. Didn't work. They then took out my hard drive and put it into my moms laptop which is the exact same make and model as mine. Still didn't work. When that option didn't work, we gave up and my uncles decided to go to Wal-Mart for Black Friday and buy me a new one. It was a nice gesture but still wouldn't have all my documents and work, so I was still feeling empty. But one of my uncles decided on one last option, and that was to transfer everything to an external hard drive then to a USB. We didn't have much hope for that since if transferring the hard drive itself into a new computer couldn't work, this wouldn't work.**

 **How fucking wrong we were.**

 **It worked. It really worked and it was by that last option, that last whim on my uncles part that he saved this chapter you all just read and saved me a ton of stress on my semester project. I can't thank him enough for helping me out on this as it was… such a relief.**

 **Here's the thing people, I could have recreated my semester project in time for the deadline, I could have rewritten this chapter for you all… but all of it would not have been the same and every single moment I spent typing would have been horrible. Why? Because every moment I spent typing, every click of a key, as my eyes constantly gaze at the screen, I would just be reminded of my stupidity. Every time I wrote for either my project or this chapter, a voice in my head would be telling me again and again "YOU FUCKED UP!" "YOU HAD IT! YOU HAD IT ALMOST COMPLETED AND YOOUUU MESSED IT ALL UP!" That voice would be reminding me again and again of my tiny moment that almost lost everything. I could recreate everything… but I'd be empty inside as I rewrote all that I had already written. The feelings and passions I would have wrote would not be there anymore and it would just be a horrible reminder. The feelings I felt that I had Peridot feel when Lapis took her gun… I wasn't sure if I could recreate that if I was kept reminding of my mistake. I was… so close to losing this and you all have no idea how relieved I was to see it all again.**

… **Okay… my rants over. It felt kind of good to get that out and I'm just glad I no longer feel sad over my potential loss of everything. I've got everything backed onto a USB drive and I'm using my mom's computer to get my writing done from now on until my uncles can fix my laptop. Don't know if they can but they insisted so since it's just dead weight to me right now, I couldn't really argue. For the next few weeks I'll be working on my semester project, typing, fact checking my info on the Korean War and so on.**

 **Hopefully I can get another chapter done before Christmas but I guess we'll see. Thank you all for your support. Really. Thank you.**

 **Oh, also I did see the new Steven Universe episodes. Interesting development that gives me ideas but I'm not sure if I'm going to do any major revisions to the plot I already have planned. Either way, it was nice.**

 **Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Fave, follow, review, have a great day everyone and as always, have fun reading.**


	63. 61 Hit the Diamond

Eyeball Ruby climbs out of the crashed ship and begins looking around with a slight growl under her breath.

Army Ruby jumps out and starts yelling out kung-fu noises as she does fighting poses. Soon she picks up a flower and kicks it. "Hi-ya!" She shouts and proceeds to cartwheel away.

"Ohhh! What a lovely planet!" Navy Ruby pops out of the ship next with a bit more happiness and excitement than the others so far. She begins walking around in a happy demeanor.

"Wait! So we just... get up and walk around?" Leggy Ruby pokes the top of her head out nervously as she hesitates in getting out. "Whoa!" She yelps as she's pushed out and falls to the ground in a heap.

Doc Ruby pops out next, having been the one to push Leggy out as she stands on the ship. Army nearby kicks a twig. "Now, where's the Gem the scanners locked on to?" Doc asks as she looks around. "Let's fan out and search the area!" She orders the rest of the Ruby's to immediately do.

Meanwhile, "Whoa, look at 'em all!" Steven moans in awe as he stares out the bottom of the barn door on the ground towards the Ruby squad. The rest of the Crystal Gems immediately took off inside the barn with Garnet carrying Steven so they won't be spotted and possibly be attacked.

"I knew it." Peridot leans out as well to look, laying on top of Steven as she plants her hands atop the boy's head. "They're after me! This is the end of the line!" She deems very scared as she pulls herself back inside the barn.

"You really weren't kidding." Lapis says in disbelief. The idea of Peridot becoming public enemy #1 wasn't something that she thought was actually and figured the green gem was exaggerating. Apparently not.

"I disobeyed a direct order from Yellow Diamond, and I called her a clod… to her face." Peridot explains in disdain.

"Oh, honestly, you call everyone a clod." Pearl points out and for quite awhile that bit of information has been true. It's hard to keep track and count of how many times she's called everyone clod but she doesn't look that bad about that.

"Yes, but not everyone has command over all the armies of Homeworld waiting for the word to shatter me!" Peridot scampers over scared and proceeds to hide under a cardboard box.

"Peridot, we won't let them get you." Steven reassures her as he goes and picks up the box to reveal Peridot curled up in it.

"But haven't I caused you enough trouble?" She asks sadly without uncurling herself.

"Don't worry, Peridot. It's our sworn duty to protect anything that calls this planet home." Garnet comes over and states with certainty to the distraught green gem. She perks up a little at the renewed info of her protection. "And that includes clods like you."

"That's my word…"

Garnet then proceeds to turn to the others with a plan in mind. "Listen up, everyone. I have a plan. Or should I say… We have a plan?" She says as she holds her hands up. To accentuate what she's getting at, with a giggle on her part, she glows brightly until…

"Hello everyone." Sapphire greets everyone as she and Ruby appear from the unfusing while holding hands.

"Ruby! Sapphire!" Pearl and Amethyst both ask in happy surprise at the appearance of their friends.

"HUUUUGS!" Steven happily runs up and embraces the both of them.

"Hello, Steven!" Sapphire greets the enthusiastic kid back.

With the greetings out of the way, Amethyst asks, "So, what's the plan?"

"You got this." Sapphire doesn't address the purple gems question and instead directs her words to her love. "Just act casual." As an incentive, she kisses the red gems cheek.

"Yeah. Casual." Pumped, Ruby palms her fist attack before walking out to the other Ruby's, albeit very stiffly and… awkwardly.

"Haaaa… I love that Gem." Sapphire comments with a dreamy look.

"We know." Amethyst and Pearl say at the same time with smiles, knowing very well how much they know about their relationship. After all, they have known the duo for about a few thousand years.

"Oh hey Sapphire, now that you're here, I wanted to ask you about something." Steven says to her.

"You wanted to ask me when Marcus is going to wake up, correct?" She's already one step ahead of him.

Everyone present, including Lapis, perk up and focus their attention on the future seeing seer and what she knows. "Yeah, that's right! So can you tell us something?" Steven, happy at the idea of knowing possibly when his brother will finally wake up, asks with a wide grin.

"It's hard to tell." Sapphire answers, making everyone become depressed. "I see many different paths his awakening will bring. When, it varies, but when he does wake up… sadness, anger, happiness, regret… or worse."

"W-worse?" Steven worriedly asks. True when it comes to a lot of Sapphires, or Garnets, predictions, she sees options and paths, not the direct future events.

"How worse?" Lapis comes up and asks, tense with a bit of anger weaved in. She's been worried for a long time, even though it's only been days since she awoke and found out but still, on the condition of her friend and now being told by a Sapphire that something worse will happen is not reassuring at all.

Sapphire looks down as she recalls what she sees. "It… won't be pretty. Not—"

"They want to search the barn!"

Everyone jumps as their Ruby comes back and tells them what happened with the other Ruby's. "Really?" Steven asks. They were all so focused on Sapphire they didn't hear or see what was going on outside. She nods in confirmation.

"That complicates things." Pearl grimly states.

"We can't let them in here. Not with…" Lapis doesn't finish speak as she looks up, toward the second floor. The others follow her eyes and get exactly what she's getting at.

"Well, I can't be seen either! I'm so scared!" Peridot fearfully exclaims as she curls up again a little. Above all, she can't be seen by her pursuers, but that's not to say they want their enemy's getting within arm's reach of their friends comatose body.

"Let's ambush them!" Amethyst proposes as she holds a baseball bat up threateningly. "

Yes! Perfect!" Peridot perks up with a happy if yet slightly creepy grin on her face. "I'll get my ammunition! You get the long distance ranged firearm!" Peridot says as she points to Pearl and scampers off elsewhere.

The white gem in question looks perplexed. "The what?" Pearl asks in confusion.

"Wait, found it!"

"Oof!" Pearl grunts as Peridot tosses her the Barrett sniper rifle into her arms. She looks down confused at the weapon as Peridot walks up loading the speedloader containing all six shots into her revolver.

"Okay, I'm ready." She states once she flicks the cylinder closed.

"No." Sapphire quickly shuts down that idea as she pushes the gun down. "No one needs to get hurt. Let's be sensible." She proposes they do but some look skeptic.

"What do I do?" Ruby meanwhile freaks out on what she's supposed to tell the other Ruby's while she bites her fingers.

"Just go out there and tell them this is a place where humans live." Sapphire suggests what she should do.

Ruby looks at her love before she sighs and rubs her arm. "I don't wanna go alone…" She states shyly.

"Oh! I'll come." Steven proposes. "I'll be your backup." He states with a macho-esque pose.

"And here's some backup for your backup." As a precaution, Amethyst hands him her baseball bat.

"I… don't think I need—"

"No time!"

"Woah!" Before Steven can reject the bat after taking it, Ruby picks him up and takes him outside. Everyone cautiously peaks out to see them going back to the Ruby squad.

" You think it's going to work?" Peridot asks worriedly.

"Hard to say." Sapphire answers. "Still many different ways this could play out."

* * *

Baseball?!" Everyone asks in surprised confusion while Lapis tends to their unconscious friend.

"Huh. I… saw that this was a possibility, though I am surprised that this is the path we're taking." Sapphire comments with a bit of surprise herself while Ruby face palms at the absurdity of what they're going to do.

*BREEEEEE*

Without much argument as to what they're going to do, Steven blows a whistle to get everyones attention and begins explaining what they need to do while holding the bat. "Alright. My human baseball knowledge will lead us to victory. Let's just go out there and pretend to be humans. Except Peridot. You stay here in the barn and hide." He points to the green gem.

"O... kay." She agrees reluctantly.

"Everybody in?" He asks and gets nods from everyone except one. "Lapis?" He calls out above.

"Huh? Oh, coming." She replies and jumps down from above, landing gracefully next to him. "What'd you say?"

"You in?" He asks again to her, wiggling the baseball bat to accentuate what he's asking.

She stares at him for a few seconds, the idea of playing the human game 'baseball' to trick the Ruby's into leaving without a fight seems… odd. Crossing her arms, she chuckles. "This plan sucks… but I guess we don't have a choice." She concedes, much to his delight. She then turns to Peridot. "Keep him safe… okay?"

Surprised a little at the question, Peridot nods firmly and salutes her, making her smile as everyone prepares to get ready for the fight… in a way.

* * *

"We're the humans!" Steven announces to the Ruby team what their team is basically, everyone adorning their own baseball uniforms to go along with the game and equipped with the right gear. "Steven!" He announces his name.

"Earl!" Pearl gives a letter less version of her name.

"Amy!" Amethyst gives her best human name.

"Bob." Lapis 'introduces' herself unenthusiastically in a monotone voice.

"And Sophie." Sapphire gives her human name with a blush while the Crystal Gem Ruby is also blushing and sweating.

With the human team having introduced themselves, its time for their opponents to do so now. "Understood. Our team is the Rubies! Consisting of… Ruby!" Doc introduces herself.

"Ruby!"

"Ruby!"

"Ruby!"

"Ruby."

"And Ruby!" And the rest of the Ruby team, starting from the Crystal Gem Ruby to Army Ruby, they introduce themselves… sort of.

"Here's the rules of the game. We take turns throwing the ball at each other. The batter tries to hit the ball with the bat, and then they run around the bases. Whoever gets the most runs wins." Steven explains the rules to everyone and without further ado after, they get the game started.

"Striiiike one!" Amethyst, the umpire, calls out as CG Ruby, the batter, purposely missed the ball that Steven threw, who was pitching.

"What?!" Army is not happy.

Another ball throw, "Striiiike two!" And another miss. Steven throws the ball one last time, "Strike three!" And she calls her out.

"Oh, darn! Guess I'm out." Ruby acts sad that she failed. Her eyes glance over to Sapphire at first base, who waves at her, making the red gem blush.

"You swung too slow!" Army, angered at the out, punches Ruby in the back, breaking her from her blushing state before she picks up the bat. "Do it like this." She states and readies herself. With the new batter up and ready, Steven tosses the ball.

*SMACK*

And it's sent flying out the field, never to be seen again as Army just basically scored a home run. "And that's called a homerun." He mutters as he watches the ball disappears.

The rest of the game goes as expected. The Crystal Gems guarding the bases and slaughtering the Ruby team, with Steven accidentally getting Eyeball angry and switching their sides. Amethyst when she bats makes a homerun hit and decides to not be so subtle and proceeds to spin dash all around the bases and hits home plate with a slide. Steven scolds her since she's supposed to be acting like a human and NOT a gem. Thankfully the Ruby's are none the wiser and Sapphire is next to bat.

"Heeeeeey Ruby." Sapphire flirts with umpire Ruby with a giggle. Unfortunately, her focus on her significant other makes her miss the ball as Doc throws it.

"Strike ONE!" She calls it.

"Haven't I see you somewhere before?" Ruby proceeds to flirt with the batter.

"I don't know. I don't get off planet much." Sapphire replies, sending the both of them to start laughing.

"Strike TWO!" And missing… again.

"What's going on? What are they doing?" Steven asks with Pearl and Amethystas he looks confused at why Sapphire isn't batting.

"Flirting." Lapis calls it as she sees it as she comes up next to them in her monotone voice.

"Uh-oh." Having known quite well for a long time, Pearl has an idea of how detrimental this may be right now for them as she says worriedly.

"Strike THREE!" And the third missed ball makes Sapphire out. Hearing the calls, the both of them are shaken from their flirtatious barrage with each other to see the others staring at them.

"Uhhh…" They both moan in embarrassment at their little screw up. Lapis gives them a thumbs up, whether because of their flirting with each other or what have you, no one knows.

The game continues regardless as the 'Human' team are up to bat some more. During Lapis's batting moment, she holds her bat over the plate, bunting the ball so she can walk without putting much effort. She walks to first base as the Rubies rush toward the home plate and dive on top of the ball but before they could even hope to tag her, she's already safe. At one point Sapphire is at the Ruby's bench chatting with her Ruby before Steven proceeds to drag her away. All the Gems continue playing while Ruby and Sapphire continue to flirt with each other at everyone opportunity. One of the Ruby's hits the ball a bit harder than intended and shatters the bat into a million pieces, forcing Steven to go to the barn to get a replacement. Who knew Greg and his family had such a massive collection of sports equipment.

"Hey, how's it going? Are we winning?" Peridot asks as she leans out the barn door a little to Steven as he grabs the bat.

"Ummm…" Steven hesitates in saying as he watches Ruby give Sapphire instructions on how to hit the ball but in reality its more so she could get her hands on the blue gem, literally. "Well, haha…" He nervously chuckles at the scene. "We're doing just fine. Everything's gonna be A-Okay." He says and walks back to the field nervously.

"You're lying to me!" Peridot angrily yet quietly shouts.

"To make you feel better!"

"Thank you!" She replies in the same tone. However as she's so focused on the game, she doesn't see the unconscious hybrid's hand twitch.

* * *

The game progresses well enough but not in favor of the 'Humans,' as much as they originally thought how things were going to go, the score being 7 to 6 with the Ruby's leading.

"Alright, it's the bottom of the ninth. We've got Lapis on second, but one more out and the game's over for us. We need to hit a home run." Steven explains to the others what's going but he gets even more worried as he sees Sapphire at bat. "Wait! I call a timeout!" He yells and goes right up to in-between them. "Listen you two, I know it's hard being separated, but we have to keep them out of the barn or they're gonna find Peridot and Marcus. Remember?!" He reminds them sternly of their original objective and why they are doing this in the first place. "Ruby, stop being cute, and Sapphire, keep your EYE on the ball!" He accentuates it by closing one of his own eyes.

"Pun… intended?"

"What did I just say?" Steven scolds Ruby with a finger snap and pointing at her for the question as he walks away.

With the game back in full swing, Doc is the pitcher and not letting up, she throws the ball at Sapphire. "Strike one!" Who misses.

All the Crystal Gems sport looks of worry at the first strike but Ruby stays confident for her love.

"Come on, I know you can do it." Ruby tries to raise Sapphire's hopes and determination on her next shots. She nods at the words before taking a better hold of her bat.

Doc throws the ball again. "Strike two!" Sapphire misses again.

"Just look at the ball." Ruby advises to her love.

"I'm trying, but all I want to look at is you." She replies.

"Don't worry, you can look at me when you're running for home." Hearing that alternative, Sapphire is nonetheless happy at the idea and concentrates on the goal at hand: hitting that ball.

Doc narrows her eyes in preparation for the throw that will determine the fate of the match and who wins. Something that the Ruby's can't afford to lose on. Getting ready to throw, she lights the ball on fire, making everyone on the opposing team nervous on the additive, and with a wide wind up, she chucks it as hard as she can. Sapphire, true to what she was told to do, focuses on the ball and with a cry of effort, she swings. "URRR, UGHHHHH!" She yells loudly as her bat makes contact and strains with the hit. For a moment, it looks like the bat is going to snap like the previous one did under the strain of the massive charring force added by the flaming spinning ball but as she strains to hold it, her natural ice powers activate and immediately coats the bat in her hands in crystallized ice. With the added armor so to say on the wooden object, there is no fear anymore for the object to break. With a final strain of effort, she pushes back. The ball is completely turned around and all eyes watch as it's sent clear into the skies away from the game.

A home run. "YEAH!" Steven cheers loudly as he and his team cheer at the victory they scored against the Ruby's. Sapphire starts running along the bases while Lapis casually walks back to home plate. When she gets there, Ruby raises her hand for a high five to the blue gem, who returns it lazily before walking off so she doesn't get tackled by the excited Sapphire running towards them.

Sapphire has the biggest grin on her face with Ruby just as happy with tears brimming as her love is on the final stretch. "Come to ME!" Ruby calls in happiness as with every step they get closer and closer together.

At the last few feet, Sapphire jumps through the air with Ruby ready to catch her without any hesitation. The both of them fall back and roll on the ground from the force of the tackle but their cries of happiness and joy fill the air… along with a glow. "Hahaha… Ha…" Garnet laughs before realizing that she's here and Ruby and Sapphire or not. "Whoops…" She mutters.

"They're Gems!" Doc makes the deduction right quick.

"We've been tricked!" Army is angry.

"What a turn of events." Navy is surprised.

"Grrrr!" Eyeball growls angrily at being tricked.

"Huh? W-what?" Leggy is just confused in general about the whole thing.

Now that the jig is up, the rest of the Crystal Gems move in next to Garnet with their weapons brandished. "Sorry, guys. Game's over." She tells them as the Ruby's get ready to fight.

"THAT'S IT! RUBY'S… COMBINE!" She orders and the rest of her entourage jump onto and climb on each other. In a glow of light that's familiar to the Crystal Gems, the five Ruby's fuse and what comes forth is a giant angry Ruby fusion. "RAAAAAH!" The fusion roars as everyone tenses up and gets ready to fight.

"Wait!" Everyone freezes at the new voice and look towards the barn. "ooh, wait! Stop! Don't hurt them!" Peridot runs out, closing the doors to the barn and tries to run but she soon falls onto her face, then falls again, before she runs on all fours to them, panting excessively as she runs in front of the Crystal Gems. "Wait. Oh, please, please! It's me you're after right? I'm not gonna stand by and let my friends fight my battles!" She demands to the large fusion.

"Awww, Peri loves us!" Steven coos at the love that Peridot shows to her friends, but that still leaves another problem they have.

"Are you the Peridot assigned to the failed Earth mission?" The giant quintuple fusion baring down on them all whose voice booms.

"Not sure if 'failed' would be the right word to-" She tries to reason with the enemy but is interrupted.

"Where is Jasper?"

"You're looking for… Jasper?" She asks confused at the question.

"Correct."

"Wait, but I'm the one who betrayed the mission, who called Yellow Diamond a clod, the new leader of the Crystal Gems?"

"What?" Pearl asks confused at the green gems claims.

"Tell us where Jasper is NOW!" The Ruby fusion demands angrily.

Peridot looks nervous at the demand, seeing as how the last time they all Jasper was when she fell into a large crack in the earth to either be melted by the heat, or crushed by the shifting ground. "Jasper-umm," She glances to Pearl for clarification but gets a subtle head shake of 'no' from the spear wielding gem. "We know where Jasper is." She lies.

"Well?!" The Ruby fusion is impatient at the somewhat stall of information she's getting.

"Uhhhh…"

"Neptune!" And in a fashion that Steven is somewhat known for, he saves the nervous groaning Peridot by his apparent answer. "She's on the planet Neptune!" He claims as he points to some random spot in the sky.

No one says anything at the answer Steven gave. The Crystal Gems sweat drop while the Ruby fusion stares intently at the kid. "Well, why didn't you say so?" She says in a not so demanding or angry tone, much to the Gems relief.

The Ruby's unfuse and head back to the ship. "We all here?" Doc asks her team and does a quick headcount. "One, two, three, four, and… ha! Five." This time though she manages to count herself instead of forgetting to like the last time. With their team assembled, they get ready to go. "To the planet-!"

*CRASH*

A loud sound against wood can be heard that makes everyone freeze. Everyone turns around to the barn to see the doors still closed.

*Crash*

The same sound accompanies the doors being pushed out slightly and violently. More crashes against the door can be heard and puts everyone on edge as the sounds become more and more violent. The Ruby's all get ready in case of attack but the Crystal Gems are confused and tense considering who's in the barn… alone.

"Marcus?" Steven mutters his brothers name. The only answer he gets is a fist going through the barn doors.

A clawed fist.

Everyone jumps as they see the action but confusion and caution are in the air. Slowly the claw reaches to the side and slowly pulls the door open before it retracts. Next, two clawed hands reach forward and pull the door open in one final push to both sides.

The Crystal Gems all take a step back as they see the monster that slowly lumbers forward out the door, hunched forward a little but no less terrifying, especially to the two that have seen it before.

"Nooo…" Lapis breathes in horror as she and Peridot take a few more steps back as they stare at the menacing beast that nearly ended the both of them on the beach. The monster slowly moves its head about, sniffing the air as it tries to get its bearing on where it is.

"ENEMY!" The monster and Crystal Gems snap their heads to the Ruby Doc as she calls out. "Ruby's again…" She orders and the rest of her team without hesitation jump on each other like last time. "COMBINE!" She orders and just like before, all five of their bodies glow and they form together to recreate the large quintuple Ruby fusion. "RAAAAAAH!" She yells out and glares at the monster.

"…" It stares at her, tilting its head to the side with curiosity at action. Without anymore provocation, the Ruby fusion starts stomping and charging towards the newly seen monster. The Crystal Gems make no attempt to stop her as it doesn't make any effort at all to brace itself as the much large opponent continues to bare down it. It's only when the fusion gets close enough does she reel her right fist back, ignite it on fire, and attacks.

"HAAAAAAA!"

*SMACK!*

Everyone can hear the sound of the attack impact something, but as they take a closer their eyes widen in surprise.

Even the Ruby fusion is surprised as she sees her flaming fist punch completely stop cold in its tracks. The monster holds its left arm up, its clawed hand having caught and stopped the attack from hitting it directly. The fire burns against its fur and flesh slowly, drawing smoke and a slightly sizzling noise but the curious look on its face doesn't disappear. Instead of being surprised for too long, the Ruby fusion brings her other arm back. "Grrrr! Hraaa—"

*Shink*

"Gaaah!" Her attack is interrupted as when she pulls back her left arm to attack, something thrusts forward and into her stomach. Stunned, she slowly and shakingly looks down. Her eye widens as she sees the monsters free right claw stuck into her stomach. The attack makes her others fall to the side as she stares up at the face.

The monsters curious face disappears, replaced by a sadistic teeth baring grin. Now that its arm isn't focused on holding her arm back, it reels back and thrusts its other arm right next to its already stabbed arm. The fusion lets out a strangled grunt from the second hit but her eyes don't leave the grinning face. It leans in close to her face. "… Weak…" It folds its arms and in one move, tears the fusion apart.\

*Poomfp*

A large cloud of smoke appears all around it as the fusion is destroyed. All the Ruby's go flying in every direction, still in their forms but completely knocked out and unconscious. The Crystal Gems stare at the scattered Ruby's all over before they look back at the rapidly dissipating smoke cloud. The form of the monster can be seen through the smoke but in one swipe of its claws, the smoke is gone and it stands to its full height. It doesn't take long before its eyes fall on the Crystal Gems and it grins again. "Time… for a challenge." It's demonic voice says to them, and readies its claws.

The Gems bare their weapons, ready as well.

"That…" Garnet begins to say, " Is the worst… option."

* * *

 **As much as I wanted to do another 'Lapis point of view focused' chapter, in her mind the Ruby's aren't labeled or have their nicknames as such yet so it wouldn't make sense for her to refer them as such ahead of time. So I stuck with it being third person the majority of the time so I can name them properly as such. You all tell me how much of a pain the ass it would have been to refer to the Ruby's at time based solely on their description. Maybe I'm thinking too much on it but still. Sorry that most of this was a rehashing of the episode but I guess I kind of wanted to throw you all off for the ending there. Don't know if it was worth it but I guess I'll see. I wanted to get this chapter out quickly because after my rant at the end of the last chapter, I kind of didn't want to leave it on that for too long so I worked on this one.**

 **There is also one other matter that I kind of want to address that makes me worried. For some time now I've been reading up and hearing a lot of news about Net Neutrality. The times before we've had attacks on Net Neutrality but they failed. This time though… it was me worried. The amount of information that's been streamlining and constantly reminding me over and over again about the seriousness of the whole thing has me really worried that this time we can lose the freedom we have on the internet. I don't want to get too political, or I don't know, about the whole thing but I've heard lots of things like how if Net Neutrality ends and the internet is regulated by big businesses and corporations, then some of the most mundane things we would have to paid in order to use them. Pretty sure I saw mention of having to pay to use Tumblr, Facebook and Google. I hope it's just a scare tactic by people wanting to keep things free but if it does prove true, Net Neutrality ends and Fanfiction, this site, is hit, then I'm done.**

 **What I mean by that is my family doesn't make enough money to support 'paying' for the access to certain sites on the internet and if becomes one of those sites that must be 'pay to enter and use' then I can't keep working on my stories. That's what's got me so freaked out about all this because I really don't want to lose my ability to write and upload my stories after I've been having so much fun to write them and hearing how much you all like them. Let alone if some of you would have to pay in order to enter the site! At the very least, I wouldn't be able to upload near as quick as I usually do, so that would suck majorly. I really hope I'm throwing this out of proportion and it's my paranoia enhancing on the whole thing but I guess I just want to say my mind on the whole matter. On Dec. 14** **th** **I believe is the date when they're going to vote on it all and will determine if I can relax and take my time on my next chapter, or I'll have to go hard in getting one lost chapter out, just in case.**

 **That's all I wanted to say, now onto the reviews.**

 **ChimaTigon:** It's quite possible at this stage. Although I wish the show would go ahead and elaborate more on Jasper and the Ruby's but I guess we'll see.

 **seruis:** Yes, soon. Quite soon. Thank you.

 **M. 6:** I'm liking the changes I've got going on with Lapis. Nice to see the changes are alright. Soon you'll see just what I have in store for the new arrivals.

 **Girlbook:** And soon it will be.

 **caincuchulainn:** Thanks for the compliments. I am proud with how Marcus is turning out and the slight differences I've got going on with the already present characters. Hopefully future installments will still be good.

 **TheStoryWever:** Yes, I am back. And still awesome to continue to be back. As much as your advice makes sense, you know put school work ahead as its more important in some aspects, that's not something I'm willing to do. See, long ago I was writing then and I put a story on its shelf so to say… and I never went back. Don't know why but the feeling of just not writing stuck with me for far longer than I would have liked and I refuse to do anything like that ever again. Even if it's just between a few words to several hundred words, I refuse to lose any sort of momentum with my writing for even a day.

 **Pyrowolf21:** It was a suckish and horrible feeling of ALMOST losing everything and I'm glad I still have all my documents. As you know Fanfiction only holds chapters for 90 days before they self-delete and having my stuff already on my computer, or in this case a USB, saves me a lot of time should I ever need to go back and make updates… which if you remember some moments in the past, I really do need to go back and change some things.

 **Patriota1993:** I am glad for everything too. Hopefully soon I can really get to them talking properly and maybe establish just how things are going. For now, simply patience.

 **Cf96:** Thank you.

 **XxSpades231xX:** It was a hectic Thanksgiving week but I'm glad I was able to continue working regardless. I'm liking the changes I made to the episode as well, plus for what I have planned for future ones. Pretty much as much as Marcus see the benefit of talking to Steven like that, right now that seems like a human matter and Gem matters seem more so the top priority on his list of things to do.

 **Thank you all for everything. I really hope things work out for this month for everyone. As you can tell from what happened here in this chapter, the next one is going to be a dozy and my own. As much as I want to get this one out as soon as possible, I still have to work more on my other projects so the very least, get ready for my Christmas present to you all. Thank you, have a great day and as always, have fun reading.**


	64. 62 Taming the Beast

**Before we get started, I just want to quickly say some stuff on my mind that I really don't want to leave at the very end once this is finished. With Christmas around the corner, I don't want this thought being at the end that'll leave everyone in a downer mood. It probably still will be there but I at least don't want it to be the last thought you think once you're done with this chapter.**

 **Alright, well in regards to the issue with Net Neutrality, it's not good. The voting came in days ago and by a vote of 3-2, the FCC are going to repeal Net Neutrality and work to regulate it. That means prioritization of specific sites and pay to enter those sites as well. However it's not as final as its made out to be. The repeal still has to go through congress, the Supreme Court and to top it off, several states and companies are suing the FCC and their chairman Ajit Pai to get this repeal overturned. While the first battle was lost, there's still more chances for the internet to continue to remain free as it has been for a long time.**

 **That's all I wanted to say. Now it's on with the show.**

* * *

"Watch out!"

*Clang*

"Ahhh!"

"Pearl!" The Gems yell in worry as the white gem goes flying after being struck by the monsters claws. Luckily she held up her spear to deflect the attack but the force behind it sent her flying back.

After the beast regarded the other group of Gems, it immediately attacked without remorse, forcing them all to separate and dodge its initial attack. Pearl tumbles through the air before she rights herself and slides along the ground with her spear stabbed into the ground. She grunts a little before looking up. Her eyes widen as the monster closes the distance and brings its claws up to end her. "RRRR!" Before that can happen, a red-black blur comes out of nowhere and tackles the monster in mid-flight to her right.

"Pearl!" She looks to her left to see Steven and Amethyst run up to her. "Are you alright?" Steven worriedly asks.

"I'm fine." She answers and manages to stand up and rolls her shoulders. "Wow, that thing hits hard." She comments as she also rubs her shoulder. Turning to the battle, they watch as Garnet takes on the monster one on one. It tries to claw her head off but she ducks down and gives it a powerful uppercut to its jaw with her gauntlets. It only stuns it for a second before it turns right around and tries to hit her. She barely has time to lean back from the attack as it knocks her visor off. Using the momentum to lean back, she twists around and brings her leg out before kicking it right in its stomach, making it go flying back before she stands up and charges. "Steven, head to the barn and make sure Marcus is alright. We'll take care of this monster." She grips her spear tightly while Amethyst pulls her whip.

"That… is Marcus." Before they can go, the info makes them stop. Peridot slowly makes her way to them, her hands shaking as she takes uneven steps when she walks.

"What? What are you talking about?" Pearl asks confused.

"That… is him." She answers once she makes it to them, her eyes continuing to stare at the fight. Garnet makes hit after hit, her speed just a bit more and a slight edge over her opponent but it is far stronger than her and tanks the hits. "Remember when we came from the moon base… what he revealed to you all?" She reminds them of that little conversation around the fireplace he told them of his problem, the night before Peridot went crazy with the Diamond communication device. Their eyes widen at the reminder before they slowly turn back to the fight.

Garnet is on the offense as she launches punch after punch towards the monster as it dodges her attacks or blocks them. After one hard punch in which it uses both arms to block, she brings her other arm up and follows up with another punch, sending it sliding back along its feet. Its feet clawing deep grooves into the ground before it stops close to the destroyed helicopter. Once it rights itself up, it stares at Garnet with a deep scowl on its muzzle before it reaches up and grabs one of the thin connectors that attach the helicopter blades to the rotor. With a jerk, the piece rips off and it holds its makeshift weapon in hand. The blade itself having been halved from the original crash landing but with enough force it could still cleave something in half fairly well. Seeing the change, Garnet holds her arms out and fires her gauntlets like missiles toward it. It moves its head to the side as the first one passes, going through the open back of the helicopter before it impacts the ground in a small explosion. The other…

*Clang*

Grabbing with both hands, it brings up the weapon and knocks the second gauntlet away from hitting it. The objects flight is sent completely off-course as it flies through the air towards the others. "Whoa!" Pearl, Amethyst and Steven duck as the missile almost hits them but explodes far behind them. Garnet quickly reforms her gauntlets as the thing rushes forward, a snarl on its face as it brings its weapon down on it against her. She jumps back to dodge but now she's on the defensive as it continues relentlessly. "That thing?! That's his messed up transformed… whatever thing?!" Amethyts asks loudly and fully surprised at the turn of events.

"Yes." Peridot answers, having continued to stand regardless of the projectile that was sent towards them.

"Well, what do we do about it?!" Amethyst asks as they stand back up. Peridot doesn't immediately answer. She remembers what this thing was capable of all too well. How it very nearly shattered her and her team when they first came to Earth. She was given the by Marcus to do what needed to be done… but now that it's here…

"Peridot!"

"Huh?" She's shaken out of her thoughts by literal shaking of her own body. She sees its Steven that's helping to snap her out of it.

"Peridot! How do we snap him out of it? How do we turn him back to normal?" Steven quickly asks her.

She stares for a second, looks down as she thinks but the answers clear as she remembers what she has to do. She quickly pats herself down before she remembers the problem. "My weapon. It's a sure fire way to turn him back to normal. In other words, pain. Lots of it and severe injuries are needed to force the regeneration, and bring him back."

"Where is your weapon?" Pearl asks.

"In the barn." She answers.

*Smack*

"Oof!" Garnet lands next to them flat on her back. They stare down at her as she continues to stare into the sky. "Ow." She looks up at the others. "Please tell me you have a plan. I'm not doing much against that thing."They stare as the object of what they have planned starts stalking its way slowly towards. Pearl and Amethyst move forward and get ready to fight.

"Steven, go with Peridot and find her weapon. We'll do what we can from here." Pearl orders the kid.

"What?! But maybe I can reason—"

"No." Garnet halts his sentence right there. She gets up but as she gets onto one knee, she grunts and looks the kid dead in the eyes. "This isn't like the battles before. This one… he's fighting without remorse. It is him… but it's also not. If Peridot has a plan, we have to trust her. She's faced this before."

"… But…"

"Steven… I don't think this one cares. We go this. You have to hurry." She places both her hands on his shoulders as she speaks. Usually he would argue and try to help, but the ragged look Garnet has, and the eyes he's staring at, without the visor, makes him see just how serious this is. He can see it in her eyes. Looking sad, he nods nonetheless. "Good." With a slight grunt, she stands up and forms her gauntlets alongside with her teammates. "Hurry." She says.

"Raaaaaaah!"

"GO!" Garnet yells as both sides charge each other.

"Steven, c'mon!" Peridot grabs his hand and pulls him away. She has to tug a bit more to get him to move because of his focus on the monstrosity that his brother turned into, but he goes nonetheless.

* * *

"Split up! Attack it at the same time!" Garnet orders before both sides could make contact. Pearl jumps to the right and Amethyst to the left while Garnet stays where she is. The monster brings its makeshift helicopter blade chopper in an overhead strike against the fusion but she jumps back as the weapon embeds itself in the ground. It quickly pulls the weapon out as Pearl comes in for a stab on its side and blocks it. It pushes her back and goes to slice her down. She moves herself just a little to its right to avoid the attack before trying to slice. It ducks from the slash before it pulls the weapon to the right, using the blunt side of its weapon to throw her away.

"Uhhh!" Pearl grunts as she's sent flying and using the momentum of its pull to the side, brings itself all the way around and hits the attacking fusion from its behind.

"Arrr!" Garnet grunts as what feels like a train hits her in her barely put up guard just before the attack. She goes sliding back front the hit and breathers heavily.

"Hey!" Before it can ready its weapon again, when its arms are outstretched after the attack, a purple whip wraps around the blade. "Let's see how you do without this!" Amethyst shouts and yanks on her whip. The monster grips the weapon tightly but as they both fight to hold it, a grin forms on its muzzle and it lets the weapon go. As the weapon goes flying from its hands, Amethyst is happy for a second as she sees she disarmed it but that turns to worry as the weapon flies straight toward her. "Whoa!" She ducks to avoid the projectile but that was her mistake. Once it dropped its makeshift weapon, it readies its claws. The natural weapons of its body gaining several inches of length and they shine with their sharpness to show their deadliness. As soon as Amethyst ducked, the claws are thrust deep into the ground and with a mighty heave carve deep holes in the dirt while also sending a ton of rocks soaring straight to her while she's distracted. It's when she gets up and turns from watching the weapon move past her that she sees them. "Pah! Oof! Ah!" She's hit with several at once before a particularly big one slams into her stomach, making her hunch over before taking another large rock straight to the face. She gets launched back from the painful hits and lands on the ground in a heap.

"Amethyst!" Pearl cries out the purple gems name in worry at the multiple hits. Her cry though doesn't go unnoticed as the monster's vision shifts to her. Seeing how she's now the next target, she scowls before standing tall and taking a few breaths. "Alright then." She mutters to herself before she grips her spear tightly. "Come on you overgrown flea bag!" She insults and spins her spear gracefully around her before holding close along her outstretched right arm. "Let's go!" She yells to it. The monster smiles at the challenge now and without any hesitation, both fighters charge each other.

* * *

"We have to hurry!" Peridot shouts as she sprints into the barn with Steven trailing behind. As soon as they both enter, they look distraught as when the monster was formed, it was angry because the whole place is upturned with stuff scattered all about with wood torn out too. "OH C'MON! Graaa!" She yells angrily at the further complication they have now of looking for her weapon. "No matter! Start ransacking and look for my firearm!" She begins going through the nearest pile of junk but she soon stops as something gets her attention. She grabs the item and pulls it out. "Well that's disappointing." She comments as she stares at the Barrett sniper rifle whose barrel was completely crushed. _'Looks like it was stepped on.'_ She thinks but she soon begins shaking her head and tosses the useless weapon away. "Forget it! Keep looking!" She yells back to Steven and continues rummaging.

"On it!" Steven replies and mixed in with the sounds of the fighting going on outside, their tossing and throwing of every item they can find and touch in the ramshackle barn. Broken pieces of wood go flying all over as they look, accompanied with other miscellaneous objects like other spare baseball gear they had lying around. While the fighting outside sounds like it's getting bad, this makes Steven worry. "I'm not finding it Peridot! I'm gonna check up stairs!" He says to her and starts climbing up the ladder.

"Good idea! I'll keep searching down here!" She replies and starts digging a little faster. "C'mon you!" She frustratingly says at how long this is getting.

Steven quickly makes it to the top and starts rummaging through a random pile until he sees something that makes him stop. He looks confused as he stares.

* * *

Pearl slides between the monsters legs as it misses hitting her before she goes to her feet and slices its back. That gets a roar of anger from the beast as it turns around intending to cleave her head off. She barely manages to deflect the claw with the shaft of her spear, one claw nicking her cheek, before she slices it in the side. A grunt of pain goes through the monster before it turns around and launches its leg at her from the side.

Pearl grunts as the leg impacts her hard against her body and sends her rolling along the ground. She groans once she comes to stop and looks up. Her spear lays just inches from her body. As she looks higher though, what she sees prompts her to quickly grab her weapon before she rolls on the ground.

*Slam*

The monster lands and its claw stabs into the ground just where she was. Seeing the opening, while laying on the ground she thrusts her spear towards the monsters chest. However it was faster than what she thought as it quickly leans back from the stab, making her miss. She doesn't wish to let up though as she spins onto one knee and sends another stab right towards it. Again it moves back and continues to move as it dodges left and right from the continuous amount of stabs that the battered white gem sends at it. They move several feet because of this but Pearl decides to do an overhead slice to try to finish it.

She misses though as it takes just a bit longer than she could muster and allows her opponent to jump far back, barely missing the attack. Pearl gets frustrated at the dodge but that's soon replaced with a thinking look. Seeing where its falling to from its dodge, she smirks and pulls her spear back one-handed. "Heeee-yah!" She shouts with a grunt of effort. Having pulled the spear back in a throwing angle, a small gust of wind and air pushes behind her from the force of the throw. The spear flies at supersonic speed right in the direction where it's supposed to land.

It has no chance to dodge.

*SHINK*

"RAAAAAAAHH!" A roar of incredible pain goes through the monster as the second its feet touches the ground, the spear hits its mark and it goes flying back. It rolls on the ground a few times before it comes to a stop in an unmoving heap.

"Yes." Pearl mumbles with a smile before she sinks to her knees. The throw having taken nearly the last of her energy, she's exhausted. _'Hopefully… that'll be enough to force it… to…'_ Her mind trails off and so does her smile as the black haired and crystaled monster slowly gets up. As soon as it's up with its back to her, it very slowly turns around to reveal her spear embedded in its shoulder, and very angry. "Nooo." She moans in despair. The monster slowly reaches up and grabs the spear. With a pained but still angry look, it rips the weapon out with only a grunt to show for it. It's black fur starts to become stained red from the wound but it doesn't seem all that bothered with it. It's when she watches it twirl her spear in its hand once does her eyes widen. In one quick deft move, it whips the spear forward. "AAAAhh!" Pearl shouts painfully as her spear misses her but cuts her on her shoulder. She falls to the ground as she clutches her shoulder painfully from the small but still painful cut. She groans from the pain as she curls up but soon looks up as she hears breathing close to her. Looking, her own breath hitches as she sees the monster covered the distance quickly and without her noticing. The wound on its shoulder has already stopped bleeding but is still there. Apparently it doesn't feel its injuries so far warrants the regeneration use but that doesn't dissuade its anger. It stares angrily at the white gem at its feet as she stares fearfully at the monster. It's when it brings it's leg up that she futilely covers her head to protect herself from the attack that'll end her.

However it's when she doesn't feel the attack destroy her form, and her gem, along with something impacting it, that she uncovers herself to see the monster is gone. "Pearl." She looks to her right to see Garnet walk up to her and kneel down. "You okay?"

Grateful to see her friend with her, she can't help but smile as she tries to sit up. "Yeah. I'm- Uhh!" She tries to stand but weakly groans as she lands on the ground again. "I'm… well enough."

"Good." Garnet is relieved to see her friend alright at least. "Can you walk?"

"Yes… with a little work. What happened to—"

"Grrrrr… Raah!" They both look to see a nearby rock that wasn't there shake before it is lifted up. It's soon revealed the monster carrying the large rock as it lifts it over its head and is pretty pissed off after having the object thrown at it.

"Yeah, that wasn't a permanent solution." Garnet mutters. In order to save Pearl from possibly getting shattered, she chucked the large rock straight at it before it could do the deed. Now, it's death glaring at the fusion. "Get out of here, grab Amethyst and help the others find some way to knock some sense into the boy." She orders her to do and forms her gauntlets.

"Along?! But Garnet you can't hope to take… him… by yourself!" Pearl worriedly states as she weakly gets to her feet. After the first fight with the beast showed it was strong enough beat Garnet, Pearl doesn't like the idea of her going toe to toe with it again so soon.

"Maybe…" Garnet replies and gets into a boxers stance. "But we don't really have choice now do we." She states firmly. She tightens her fists in preparation. "Get moving. I'll keep it distracted as long as I can."

Pearl looks between both of them a few times, not really confident in the match up but a pang of pain from her shoulder and the unconscious form of the purple gem shows no room for argument, or any hope of backing her up. Resigned to what she needs to do, she reluctantly nods and starts limping away. "Good luck." She calls back before she fully leaves.

"Thanks." She replies and takes a few steady breaths. "I'm gonna need it." She mutters under her breath and slides her feet into the proper stance to fight. The monster however stares at her angrily but it doesn't go unnoticed as its eyes drift to the limping gem. With a sadistic grin, it reels its arms back and throws the rock its holding straight at the retreating injured gem. "Hraaaaa!" Not allowing it to happen, Garnet dodges to the right and just before the projectile passes her, she launches a powerful punch that obliterates the rock and sends a large cloud of dirt dust around her. Pearl glances back to see what happens but seeing as she's not being attacked she continues moving. Garnet slowly steps out of the cloud and walks into full view, pissed off at the cheap shot it just tried to do. "Your fight is with me now!" Garnet reminds it and puts up her fists. "And I'm going to knock some sense into that thick head of yours Marcus!" She yells at it, ready to throw down.

"… Ha ha ha ha ha." The monster lets out a few low laughs at the name. Slowly it brings its claws up with a grin still on its muzzle. "He's not in here anymore." Its dark demonic voice says to her. Gritting her own teeth in anger, she widens her stance… and charges.

The monster dashes forward too.

* * *

"Lapis?" Steven walks up to the blue gem huddled in the corner. She's sitting against some hay bales with her knees curled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around. Her face remains buried in between her knees, arms and chest.

"…" She doesn't respond to her name being called.

"Lapis. What are you doing here? We need your help in finding a way to snap Marcus back to normal! C'mon!" He grabs her arm and tries to pull her. "Help us find Peridot's weapon so she can- Whoa!" Before he can finish speaking he's thrown of balance as an opposite force knocks him to the ground. He quickly realizes that he's not holding Lapis anymore. Looking he sees her arm back where it's curled up again and she's still yet to move. Looking puzzled at the Gem, he stands back up and moves closer to her but doesn't make any moves to touch or move her. "Lapis… what's wrong?" He worriedly asks. She doesn't reply, only curling herself up tighter. _'What… why is she… Why's she so—'_

* * *

" _Second… there's something about me that's… dangerous. Something that I don't have control over."_

" _Yeah, it almost shattered Jasper, Perdot… and Lapis."_

* * *

The explanation Marcus gave him and the others the night they came back from the moon base pops back into Steven's mind. Peridot was a bit … shocked and stunned to see that thing. Remembering that Lapis too was almost attacked, he now sees why she's unresponsive right now.

"Lapis… Marcus… told us what happened when you, Peridot and Jasper came in the ship. He… he said he was—"

"Steven." He looks back to see Peridot peaking over the edge to them. "I found it." She says in a less than enthusiastic voice. Almost like she's not really happy she found her weapon. It's tucked in her holster on her chest. She drops back down the ladder out of sight.

He turns back to the sad blue Gem before he slowly places his hand on her shoulder. "He told us he didn't have any control of… that. He's… he was sorry for what happened… and he regrets it."

"Steven!" He hears Pearl's distraught voice coming from outside.

He looks back towards the door before looking down. Taking one last look at Lapis, he lets go and heads to the ladder. Just before he goes, he stops. "That… can't be him out there. It just can't." He says one last time before heading down.

Once he drops to the ground, he runs outside and is instantly worried at the sight he sees. Peridot is checking to make sure she has ammo in the weapon and its ready to fire while Pearl, severely injured and tired, with a bruised unconscious Amethyst lying next to her against the barn door and the bat from the game. He also sees Garnet is going one on one with the monster but is losing, evident after she takes a knee to the stomach.

"Steven!" He tears himself away from the fight to Pearl.

"Pearl!" He shouts worried at her kneeling form before moving up to her. "Are you two alright?"

"I can manage." She mutters as she still holds her shoulder but looks sad at her down partner. "But Amethyst took bad hits. She's out and I can't fight anymore." She quickly explains the status of them both before seeing Peridot and smiling. "I'm glad you two were able to find her weapon. Garnet's on her last leg and I don't know how much longer she can last." She worriedly states as the fusion's attacks start to feel sluggish. Peridot for her part finally flicks the cylinder closed after she finishes her inspection. "Is it working now? Good. Now hurry up and do what you need to do! Garnet's in trouble!" Pearl points out as one particular punch sends her rolling on the ground. As Peridot holds her gun up with both hands, the monster stalks up to the downed fusion. Steven covers his ears and closes his eyes as they wait for the gunfire to commence.

…

But they don't hear anything. "What are you waiting for?! Take him down already!" Pearl demands angrily at the hesitating Gem.

However as Steven watches Peridot, he sees her hands shaking and sweat going down her face. "Peridot?"

"I… I… I can't." She finally says in defeat. The other look surprised at the statement but she continues. "He… he gave me a purpose. He gave me this job in case things get out of hand but… I don't want to hurt him! He's… my friend I just…" Her words come out broken and uneven. After she basically gave up on Homeworld after she insulted Yellow Diamond, she was pretty distraught on what her purpose is after she was declared a Crystal Gem… but he knew she was still uneasy about the new arrangements and it's because of the trust he placed in her, new equipment he gave her and the new job gave her something to not freak out over. But now that it's back and she's aiming, she can't pull the trigger. It may not be him… but somewhere, he is. "I can't." Her weapon lowers just slightly as the monster stands in front of a kneeling Garnet, ready to strike with both claws.

*Pat*

A hand is placed on the gun, stopping the shaking. Her eyes widen as she follows the hand to its owner.

"I can."

* * *

 _Earlier…_

Garnet and the monster charge each other. It tries to slice her with its claw but she bat the appendage away with one gauntlet and brings in the other to punch. She's blocked however as its other arm stops her fist from connecting. She tries to punch with the other but the same thing happens again. It smiles at the vulnerable position Garnet has herself in before it reels its head back and brings it forward.

Garnet grunts loudly in pain as the head butt cracks her visor and sends her sliding back on her back. She groans from the massive headache she receives but her senses quickly come back enough that she sees the monster jumping towards her with its claws extended to stab her. With just enough time, she rolls backwards onto her hands just as the claws stab right where she was lying. Before her opponent could move, she thrusts her feet outwards, straight at its face.

The monster goes flying back as the double kick to its face sends it hurtling back and giving her some breathing room. She quickly gets back to her feet and pants tiredly while her opponent is bruised and battered but still has some fight left in it. Once it finishes moving, it growls in anger before it gets to its feet and starts stalking towards Garnet. The fusion sulks at the near endless stamina this thing has. "Great. Just great." She mutters and stalks up to it as well. Once they get close to each other neither of them bother to chitchat or anything of that nature. Instead, as soon as they get close, they attack.

Garnet leans to dodge a claw swipe before throwing a right hook. It too dodges her attack and the both of them go back and forth in trying to hit the other, slow at first but their speed gradually picks up. This doesn't go on long though as at the same time Garnet dodges, she also throws a punch that nails it right in the side of its face. She smiles at the hit she scores but her moment of victory, coupled with her fatigue, makes her reaction time unable to dodge its next attack. As it reels back from the punch, the monster swings its arm out and backhands Garnet hard. "Arh!" She cries out at the hit as it knocks her visor off, making it shatter as it hits the ground. Once she moves back to fight, it continues to press the attack as it punches her in her chest then follows up with a knee strike straight to her stomach. She coughs from the hit to her gut and as she bends over in pain, the monster twirls around and sends its leg out to hit her. Having exhausted herself far too much already, she goes flying back, rolling along the ground several times before she finally stops, unmoving. The monster having had enough of the challenge, its clawed feet slam onto the ground angrily, cracking the ground slightly as it moves ever so closer to the groaning fusion. The world around seems to quiet down and deafen as it focuses everything at the one creature that almost gave it a challenge.

Almost.

As soon as Garnet barely manages to push herself up with only her elbows, she sees the clawed foot step in front of her. Dreading the unfavorable position she finds herself in, she slowly looks up to see the monster standing tall. "Get… up." It speaks in its dark demonic voice.

With a strained grit of her lips, she slowly pushes herself up until she gets onto one knee. As soon as she tries to stand though, her legs shake before ultimately giving out and making her collapse onto her knees. _'No…'_ Her breathing becomes heavy after the strain of everything takes its toll on her. She looks up at the monster, an impassive look on its face and a desperate one on Garnet's. "Marcus… please… fight it…" She almost begs for him.

Her words fall on deaf ears though as the monster spits out to the side with a disgusted look. It flares its arms outward and above, claws ready to eviscerate in one swipe. "Weak." It snarls one last time… and strikes.

*BANG*

"ARRRRGHHHH!" A powerful angry and painful cry permeates the air followed by the sound of a revolver going off. The monster looks down at its bleeding right claw, a hole having gone right through its palm. Growling at the injury it rears its head and glares at who dares attack him. It's eyes widen at its new opponent.

* * *

Lapis Lazuli stands tall, her left arm outstretched in front her, Peridot's modified Colt Anaconda revolver in her hand as smoke leaves the barrel of the recently fired gun. The smoke is quickly carried away as the wind gently blows against them all. The wind just moving her hair ever so slightly as she stares unblinkingly at the monster that nearly first attacked her so long ago.

* * *

" _I care about you Lapis. More than you think. I don't know what it was that I became but that thing doesn't speak for me!"_

* * *

"We can't hurt him… but we can hurt that." Lapis says firmly while still staring at the monster. She remembers what it was that he said back on Peridot's ship, when she was trapped in that prison cell and he came to save her. If he really was as horrible as that monster was, then he wouldn't have worked so hard to free her from Malachite. He wouldn't have taken that pipe to his back to save her when it was heading for her gem. _'This… thing thinks it can take him over. Thinks it can take him from us. From me! One of the few people that I'm close too! I. Won't. Let it.'_ She thinks angrily as she tightens her grip on the revolver. If he really does care about her, then she's going to get him back!

The monster moves around Garnet, who moves away from the new battle as Lapis opens fire again.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*Bang*Bang*

Without any hesitation she fires the remaining rounds in her weapon once Garnet is sufficiently away. The monster ducks and dodges the next three shots but the last two wound it. One grazes its shoulder and the other its right leg, making it kneel in further pain. It growls angrily before it sets its sights again on the blue gem but doesn't get up, instead trying to get its bearings over all the injuries its sustained, and suppressing the quick regeneration ability.

With the ammo used, Lapis remembers the times she's seen the weapons use and easily flicks the cylinder open and lets the shell casings fall out. But once the ammos out she remembers she doesn't have anymore on her, making her scowl in annoyance.

She feels someone tugging her shirt. Looking down, she's greeted by two things: One, Peridot who looks up in awe at her, and two, the circular speedloader round she holds up to her. The annoyed look gone, she slowly takes the offered ammo, making Peridot smile as she holds the new set of six rounds for her to use. After examining them for a bit, she shoves all six rounds in the cylinder at once and flicks it closed. Gun in her left hand and ammo restored, she's ready.

"Hey." Lapis turns to the voice and barely has time to pull up her right free hand to catch what's thrown at her. Once she has it in her hand, she looks to see it's a baseball bat. Looking up from the object, she sees who threw it to her. Amethyst gives her a tired smile amidst her bruised face. "Knock some sense into that kid." Lapis reciprocates the smile and nods before turning towards the monster, where its finally gotten its bearings and glares at her, ready to fight again.

It gets up onto its feet and slowly makes its way to her in a walk. Matching its glare with one of her own, she too walks forward at a slow pace. Their steps are slow and menacing at first but it's the monster that slowly begins to pick up pace towards her. "I am going to FINISH YOU!" She challenges it as she too stalks forward.

"C'mon then!" It replies and bares its claws outwards as it begins sprinting to her. Still walking forward, Lapis's wings form on her back but don't stay for long. Small drops of the water substance directly from her break off, soon forming several dozen small crystallized sharp pieces that float around her as her wings retract. She angles them mentally straight at her opponent and they shoot off at the monster like bullets. She sprints forward once she sees the monster bring its arms up in a protective defense. The makeshift projectiles don't have enough force or mass to pierce its skin or fur but that wasn't the intention. It brings its arms down but its intended glare is replaced with widening pupils.

"HRAAAAA!" Lapis lets out a war cry as she jumps into the air with her bat pulled back to strike.

*SMACK*

It connects. The wooden object impacts the top of its head, making it grunt as its head is forced down but she doesn't stop there. As soon as her feet impact the ground and once her weapon goes low to the ground, she bring it right back up and nails it right in the side of its face. The monster grunts as its head is jerked to the side by the force off the blow. She reels back for another strike but this one aimed at the side of its stomach. It lurches from the attack but in a moment of anger, it brings its right claw up to slash her down. Lapis doesn't let it as she takes one step back and twirls on one foot, narrowly going just outside of the claws reach as it misses her. Taking the opportunity, she finishes twirling onto her other foot as she moves closer to her enemy. Before it can bring back its claw back up to slash her, she brings her bat up and impacts it against its open shoulder.

The hit connects with a loud crack as its shoulder blade is knocked out of its socket, rendering its right claw arm useless. It roars in anger at the displaced bone and tries to slash her with its left claw but it isn't as fast as the previous attacks. She easily ducks under the attack and while doing so, brings her bat up along to its right side and hits it right in the side of its stomach. This time it lurches forward from the hit and almost falls to the ground. Lapis still doesn't relent as she moves over to its left and with its exposed, lands another hit now onto its back, avoiding the crystals. The hit forces it to its knees now, dazes from the attack. She then rolls over its back until she's on the other side and in one quick succession, she pistol whips it on the side of its face with her revolver in her left hand then follows up with a hit from her bat to the underside of its muzzle. The last hit makes it go up onto its feet once again. It sways for a second from the multiple attacks that were unleashed on it but shakes its head to make set it back to its senses. Now it's very pissed off as it growls darkly at her and shoulder charges her. She quickly brings her bat up to defend herself as she's pushed back because of the charge. Before it stops it pushes her back and using its left claw it brings it down on her. She twirls around to its left, avoiding the attack and bringing her bat to strike its arm.

*CRACK*

With the sickening sound to accompany it, her baseball bat breaks on contact with its arm. The large top half of her weapon goes flying off away from them. She stares at the jagged broken piece of what's left of her weapon for a second before looking up at the recovering monster. It smiles at the lack of weapon she now carries as it gets up and prepares to swipe her with its claw, very intent to end her. However as it slashes she ducks under it before putting her back right up to its chest and brings her broken bat up, twirls it around in her hand once it's reverse-handed…

*SHICK*

And thrusts it back right into that things chest.

"Raaaaagh!" It roars in pain at the attack and now embedded weapon in its flesh, making it stumble back and giving Lapis the opportunity to attack some more. Bringing her gun up over her shoulder, she fires.

*Bang*

The round tears through its left shoulder, further injuring it as it steps further back several steps and crouches to one knee. It looks down in a mixture of tired and pain as its breathing comes in ragged breaths. Lapis stares down at the severely injured monster in front of her but still, it doesn't relent in letting the regeneration take hold. This time, it's determined to not go anywhere and from what it can tell, she is the last obstacle. With a fierce grunt, it gets back onto its feet. With one quick move, it snaps its dislocated shoulder back into place, regaining the use of its right arm. "I. WILL. END YOU!" It roars angrily and charges her. As moves toward her, she makes no move to dodge, deflect or do anything… until she simply brings her gun up and fires into its recently fixed right shoulder.

*Bang*

It stops in its tracks and snarls in pain from the bullet. But still it doesn't stop. It continues to move forward but she fires again, this time into its left leg.

*Bang*

Its body jerks from the hit but can only growl weakly as it goes to its knee. No amount of determinism can make it force itself to continue from all the abuse it's taken so far. Still, it continues regardless as it gets onto both feet, limply moving towards her.

*Bang*

She fires again, this time into its right leg. It grunts as it goes onto one knee again. Its breathing comes in low deep breaths as it tries to stare at her but its vision is starting to get blurry. Lapis's form only comes in as a blue blob in its eyes while the Gem herself fixes to almost defeated creature with a neutral expression that she seems to sport a lot recently. With shaking legs, it pushes itself back onto its feet and limps heavily towards her. Seeing its continued actions, she lowers her gun and waits for it to get close enough to her. Once it does, in one final act of defiance, it lifts its right claw up and weakly swipes it her.

She steps forward before it can hit her. The slow ineffective attack passes behind her as she presses herself right up against the beast.

"No… you won't."

*Pfffft*

Instead of the massive recoil sound that comes from a gun, the sound is muffled considerably. The beasts body visibly jerks as the round enters into its stomach. Very slowly with uneasy steps it moves back, a dazed look on its face. Lapis stands there with her gun pointed towards it from her side. Having pressed the barrel right up to it, the sound was muffled, the recoil force and fire blast injuring it further with just a bit of black scoring and blood on the barrels ring. The monsters body shakes from the new gunshot until with a heavy breath, it falls onto both of its knees finally. All the times before since it was fighting the Crystal Gems, it never succumbed nor desired to fall onto its knees to anyone.

Now… it doesn't have choice.

It's body slumps as red rivers of blood run down its body to barely start pooling under it. From dripping to it claws, to under its knees, the monster that's kept their friend trapped, that nearly shattered them all, is defeated. Slowly, it brings its head up and stares into the sky.

Its view of the sky is mixed in with a blue blur that steps closer to it. The blur slowly takes shape as it focuses its eyes. Lapis comes into perfect view of its vision… and smiles.

"Strong."

* * *

My teeth grit in anger and my grip tightens on my borrowed gun.

I plant the barrel of the gun right between its eyes, finger on the trigger.

"Give him back to me."

*BOOM*

The last round in my weapon fires, lifting the weapon upwards as the round goes through the skull of this thing and hits the dirt behind it. Its body jerks from the hit and with a glazed look in its eyes, falls back.

*Thud*

Its body falls flat on its back, lifeless. An eerie silence falls over the whole area around me. The only thing I can hear is faint steps, the wind blowing around me and just the last of the echo from the last gunshot. The gun in my hand slips out and hits the dirt below me. _'Please… please tell me I did the right thing.'_

"Is… is it over?" I turn to my right to see Pearl walking up to me, with her spear out and Amethyst next to her as well. Looking past her, I spot Garnet moving as well with Steven helping her as best he can. Although because she spent the most fighting, she's the one that took the most amount of abuse so she's having a tougher time moving. She 's also doing what she can to keep Steven from seeing the… mess.

I stare back at Pearl for a second before turning back to the body. "I hope so." I mutter depressed. _'I still can't believe… all this…'_

"Just… give it some time." Peridot comes in from my left and stares at the body. "Hopefully… he will regenerate from this one."

"Hopefully?" I question, with just a bit of anger edging in my voice. "What do you mean 'hopefully'?"

"Well when I shot him I didn't aim for the head!" Peridot retorts in anger as well but it soon disappears into remorse. "But… I don't know about… this." She gestures to the body.

I look at her with wide eyes before looking in horror at the body. _'No… no no nononono! Please no! Please tell me I didn't—!'_

My thoughts of regret and horror are cut off as I see the familiar glow of his body transforming. The broken bat piece falls off and the blood around us disappears as the body starts to lose its mass. I can't help but smile as I see the shape of his body start to become familiar through the glow. Soon Steven and Garnet manage to make their way to us and see the glowing transformation up close. Steven looks on in awe at the slowly changing form but I'm just happy to see that thing disappear. Soon, the glow disappears and we are left with our friend again. Looks of relief grace everyone's faces at seeing that thing gone.

"Marcus!" Steven rushes forward and immediately hugs him. "Oh Marcus it's so good to see you! I was so worried that you wouldn't wake up and you'd be asleep forever! Well you did wake up but I didn't want you to turn into a crazy monster that would hurt all of us! I'm just glad you're…" His rant dies off as well as our relieved looks once we see the problem. Steven pulls back and lifts Marcus's arm before letting it go. It lands back on the ground without any resistance whatsoever. "Still asleep?" He finishes saying confused. Marcus is here but his eyes and mouth are closed. He's still breathing but he's just like how he was before he changed, when I woke up and saw him just laying there in the barn. "Shouldn't he be awake?" Steven asks Peridot, and so do the rest of us stare at her. The confusion on her face doesn't fill me with confidence.

"He should." She says and sits next to him as I move closer. She presses a hand to her chin in thought. "After he transformed back to normal the first time, he woke up and looked straight at Jasper before she knocked him out. Now…"

"He's not waking up." I finish what she's saying. She nods as I lean in close to him.

"Precisely. After his regeneration, he should have no complications whatsoever to his physical health. That only leaves one other area where he could be having trouble."

"His mind." I add as I lean in close to his sleeping face.

"Correct. Since there are two minds inhabiting this body, it would seem that they're fighting for control." Peridot thinks, then crosses her arms. "And I think… he's losing." She grimly states.

Worry is what we are feeling right now. "You mean we could lose him to that thing?!" Amethyst loudly states as she grips her hair. "Holy crud!"

"We barely fought it off this time with our lives! We can't keep dealing with this all the time! It'll be just like when we were dealing with Peridot's constant plug robonoids onslaught! Only this time it'll be much worse! No offense." Pearl hysterically explains before calmly saying the last part to the green gem.

"None taken." Peridot says before continuing. "Question is now how are we supposed to help him?! It's not like any of us can magically go into his mind to fix him directly!"

"…" All of us besides Peridot and Steven blink before we look towards the kid. His stare is focused on the unconscious body of his brother but he looks up confused once he feels our eyes on him.

"What?" He asks in a confused tone.

I move away from Marcus and one my hands and knees, I look at Steven at eye-level dead in his eyes. "Steven, I'm going to need your help."

* * *

"Grrrr."

"Quite struggling. You're not going to get out."

I look up at the monster. Bastards finally returned. I am sitting here on my knees in this blackened area around me with chains wrapped around my arms that seem to suck and merge into the ground around me. They are black too like the surrounding area but their color hue is just slightly brighter I can still see their outline in the darkness and know what the hell's keeping me here. I don't know what's going on exactly but I do know after I was forced into my regeneration state, I suddenly found myself here and captured. Then that thing came up and said it wanted out. It was tired of waiting and as soon as it took the opportunity, it left through the white doorway while I watched and could do nothing.

My mind was filled with worry at the idea of that thing having gotten out and attacked… everyone. I've been trying to get out but I've got nothing and I've made no progress. The only thing I've done is make myself tired but I'm not stopping. Although now that its back and looks angry, I'm feeling a little better even if I have to look at its stupid face. That could mean that it was defeated and the others were able to kick it ass.

"Just because you say so doesn't mean I'm going to stop all of a sudden."

"Graaaa!"

"Guh!" My comment probably angered him more than it should have because while my arms arm forced tightly and stretched against the chains, this thing is lifting me up by my throat harshly. Even through my barely air deprived vision, I can see it growling and gritting its teeth in anger. For awhile it feels like it's going to snap my neck but I'm let go soon after. The chains rattle as they finally are given slack and hit the ground, along with my heavy breathing. Once I'm well enough, I look back to see it pacing. "So… *Cough* I assume you weren't given a warm-welcome out there?" I ask with a shit-eating grin. In reality I really shouldn't antagonize it like that but I don't really feel like appeasing it or anything of that nature.

It growls at me for a second before resuming its pacing. "…Your friends are powerful. Almost enough to beat me…" I smile at that. "Especially that blue one."

I frown at that. _'Lapis?'_ "Lapis?" I voice my thought. "What do you mean? What the hell did you—" I try to get at him but I only go an inch before the chains are stretched taught. It notices my change of mood and lets out a dark chuckle.

"Yes, her. She's strong… very strong." It menacingly speaks as it slowly walks around me. Because I'm chained to the damn floor I can't turn to face it as I can only snap my head around. "More stronger than I think your other friends realize. Maybe even you realize." It speaks the last part to my ear and I growl as I go to grab it but the damn chains! "So strong she took me down." It stops in front of me with its back to me. "Reminds me of that yellow one I faced after I first awoke. Jasper, was it?" It asks as it glance back at me, expecting me to answer but it only gets my scowl and death glare. "I believe that was what she was. Wouldn't mind taking her on again." I can hear it mumble to itself with sadistic glee before turning around and walking right up to me. "But first," It leans in close and right up to my face. "I can't wait to get out of here and that Lapis again when I'm fully healed. Then I can really show her just how powerful I am." I growls to me right in front of my face as we both stare into each other's eyes. _'Oh how I would just love to punch your teeth in, force open your jaw and rip your—'_

"Wanna bet." My increasingly dark thoughts are interrupted as we both widen our eyes at the new voice. Well, new to us now, but familiar in another sense. It steps back and reveals to me just who the new arrival is. Actually, who the new arrivals are.

"Steven!" I cry out in happiness at seeing my brother finally after days of captivity.

"Marcus!" He happily shouts back and moves forward.

"Hold it Steven!" Lapis quickly places her hand in front of him to stop him from going any further towards this monster in front of me. "Don't go near that thing."

"Hehe, strong and smart. A deadly combination." It speaks as it slowly lumbers towards them. "Problem is, you're on my turf now and I'm not tired here." It crosses its claws in front of its chest with a toothy grin. "Do you really think you can defeat me in my prime when your friends couldn't?"

* * *

Lapis glares at the beast before taking a few steps forward and assumes a fighting stance. Her left leg moves forward where it's straightened out and her foot aims to the front with her right leg bent under, ready to push off. Her left fist is clenched in front of her while her right fist is pulled to just the right of her face. As she gets into her stance, her wings form on her back but they don't stay long as the water substance that forms directly from her gem bends forward and latches itself onto her shoulders before creeping forward along her arms till they encase the entirety of both her arms and hands. They remain water and drip for a bit before solidifying and forming her own makeshift hardened water fist and arm gauntlets. "I'm willing to try." She challenges it.

"Ha ha ha ha haaaa…" It laughs darkly before breathing in sharply then throwing its arms out the side, its claws slicing against each other and making their sharpness known. "Your mistake." It mutters and starts stomping forward.

"Steven." Lapis gets the kids attention. He looks up at her while she continues to stare at her opponent. "I need you to go try and free Marcus while I take this thing on. It was weak when I fought it before but now it's fully healed and ready to fight. We need him to finish this once and for all." She glances to the side to look at him. "Can you do that?"

"Are you sure you don't want me to try to help?" He asks her, then summons his shield on his arm.

"Hm, thanks but I think we're going to need more help than just us. Besides, I think Marcus looks like he wants to fight too." She says and they both look past the moving beast to their captured friend to see him angrily staring at the back of the monster and struggle against his chains. "Go get him. I got this."

Steven looks worried for leaving her alone to fight this thing that's now fully healed but nods and starts making his way around. "Good luck." He says to her before he goes.

"Thanks." She thanks him and she slowly starts making her way towards her opponent as well. Both of them continue to have their arms up ready to attack as they get closer and closer to each other. Their eyes continue to remain locked and ready to fight but as soon as that thing spots Steven moving around them, it growls, and charges Steven. It doesn't want any of these intruders to rescue its captive and will not let any insignificant distractions to free him. In one jump, it moves through the air straight towards Steven, its right claw ready to eviscerate him. Steven looks up in surprise at him being the new target all of a sudden and pulls up his shield to protect himself. However nothing hits his shield as a loud clang can be heard but not by him. He opens his eyes to see Lapis in front of him, her arms held up to catch the attack. They both struggle against each other as one tries to overpower the other. Lapis stares angrily at the monster. "Your fight is with ME!" She yells and pushes the thing off, making it slide back along the ground. "Steven! Go!" She orders to the kid and charges her opponent.

They both go at each other in trying to hit the other. The monster tries to slice at her but she uses her gauntlets to deflect its claw strikes. She tries to strike it as well with her fists but now with its strength back, it's able to dodge and block her attacks more easily. She lets loose several punches but it brings both its arms up to block her attack. As soon as she stops to attack once more, it whips both its blocking arms outward and backhands her away. Lapis goes flying back several yards until she finally comes to a stop. She gets up but the monster is already moving towards her to attack her again. She quickly ducks to dodge its attack and twist around where she hits the monster right into its chest using the entire back of her left arm. This hit stuns the beast and makes it slide back, giving Lapis the chance to press the attack. Unfortunately the monster recovers in time and as soon as she gets close enough, it brings its right claw up to attack her. Like before she brings her arms up to block it… but it was a feint.

After intentionally pulling its claw strike, it instead sweeps her legs right out from under her. After having focused on an attack from above, Lapis is completely caught off guard from the attack on her legs as it leaves her completely open. With the new opportunity, the monster brings both its arms up while she's in the air and slams them down both right on top of her. She only barely has enough time to pull her arms up to defend herself but that's only from its attack. She can't stop herself from slamming hard into the ground on her back. The act of herself being slammed into the ground dazes and stuns her for a moment. She drops her guard from the pain and squints her eyes but once she opens them her eyes widen.

The monster rears its legs back and kicks her far away from it harshly.

* * *

"Steven." I breathe my brother's name in happiness.

"Marcus!" He doesn't waste the moment to run right up to me and hug me. "Oh it's so good to talk to you! Seeing you unconscious like that for so long… we didn't know what to do after you did your regeneration power and you wouldn't wake up after a day."

"Yeah… sorry again for attacking you." I apologize to him finally. After I woke up from the whole thing with the Cluster, I was seeing so much of… my mom and seeing anyone else just… _'I still can't believe I attacked Steven. My brother I…'_ "When… the Cluster… attacked me they showed me some… visions… memories and I was just so out of it when you found I couldn't—"

"It's fine." He interrupts my worried tone and speaking. "I know you wouldn't have attacked me unless something was going on with you. And… I kind of got the idea something was wrong with all you're screaming."

"Right." I mutter and we go into a small silence with the sounds of fighting going on in the background. "Listen, Steven, it's good to see you again but I could use some help if you'd be so kind." I accentuate what I mean by rattling the chains on my arms. I don't even have enough slack to hug Steven back.

"Oh, right! Sorry!" He replies and goes about trying to pull my chains off. Unlike normal chains, these ones have no locks or latches to unlock them and are completely melded into the ground. The only way to get them off looks to be like as much brute force as we can put on the. "HAeeeeeee!" Unfortunately, while Steven and I are naturally stronger than normal humans, both of us pulling don't have enough power to rip these things apart. "Eeeeeee guh!" Soon my brother stops pulling and sighs. "Aw man. We can't pull them out."

"We need something else." I mutter and while we think for a second, I look to see Lapis somewhat holding her own against that thing. Somewhat. "And fast." I say worriedly and angrily. Seeing this thing go against her like that, fighting her, my teeth grit but how she's fight though is kind of—

"I know!" Steven calls out and breaks me from my thoughts. He forms his shield again and grabs it with both hands.

"Nice. That's the best we got now." With our options limited at this point, having him basically beat my chains until they break is the best choice we got. Not wasting any more time, he brings his shield up and starts slamming it against my right chain. It makes a loud 'clang' but he continues to do so. "Good, keep it up." I encourage him to go on.

"Ahhhh!" My head snaps to the fight and my eyes widen as I watch Lapis go flying. My stomach drops as I see her go but I'm slightly relieved when she lands on the ground and rolls into a crouch. Albeit she looks weak and slightly injured but still alive thankfully. Unfortunately, now the monsters eyes are set on us.

"Steven hurry!" I rush him.

"Hold on I almost got it." I reply's and brings his shield once more up to strike the chain. He doesn't get the chance to.

"Look out!" I push him as best I can away from where he just was. In a single bound that thing immediately went for us. Steven stumbles back in surprise but quickly pulls up his shield to block the attack aimed at him. My eyes widen as I watch my brother go flying. "STEVEN!" I yell his name in worry as this fucking thing only glances at me, before smiling and charging after him. "No… no no no nooooo!" I yell and angrily as I see it trying to go after my brother. I struggle to try to free myself from these damndable chains but they're still stuck. I do look closely at the spot Steven was hitting the ground around the chain and I smile as I see small cracks.

* * *

Steven takes several steps back as he holds his shield up, each step he takes back punctuated by the claw strikes sent towards him that he barely manages to block. "Ah! Uh! Ahhhh! Stop!" Steven worriedly cries out repeatedly as the monsters attacks continue to force him back. At the same time his arms start to hurt from the massive force that each of the attack exhibits on him.

"You are pathetic!" The monster snarls as it doesn't let up in the least, despite Steven's protests. "How can something so weak be the center of what he cares about!" It yells as its attacks become more ferocious. He can do anything he wants and yet he's so willing to sacrifice his own life for a gnat like you." It snarls to him, much to Steven's rising fear. Annoyed at the constant deflects and blocks by the kid, it reaches forward and grasps Steven's shield before pulling it away, along with Steven.

"Whaaaaaa- Oof!" He goes tumbling through the air before hitting the ground and rolling a few times. "Uhhhh…" He groans for a second after the dizzy air tumble he went through and turns over onto his back. "AAAAh!" Steven yelps as the monster grabs his shirt and lifts him into the air.

It effortlessly lifts him up and growls at Steven as it keeps him at arm's length with its left arm. "I… will…!" It growls directly into his eyes. It flexes its right claws and folds its arm to thrust. Steven's eyes widen as he desperately tries to pull himself off the grip. "BREAK HIM!" It yells and thrusts.

*SHINK*

"RAAAAAAAAGHHHH!"

"Oof." Steven grunts as he lands on the ground roughly. Rubbing his head from the rough landing, he then looks up.

The monster growls darkly in pain as it looks down towards its left shoulder. A piece of chain juts out from it. It looks confused before turning to the side and glances behind and what happened.

Marcus stands several feet away, his right arm curled around the end of the chain that leads to the one embedded in the monster while his left arm and chain lays on the ground around him. A pissed off and very angry face is what he has on his face as he grits his teeth. "You… will never break me!" He yells and tightens his fist on the chain attached to his enemy. "And you will NEVER take my brother from me! Now…" He curls his arm forward just a little. "GET OVER HERE!" Along with his yell, he pulls the chain towards him.

Barely able to do anything else, the monster is suddenly lifted off its feet and sent hurtling towards Marcus. The beast lets out a strangled grunt from the sudden new force exhibited on its body as it twists in the air so its facing toward Marcus. In a last ditch move, it tries to cut Marcus but he jumps up into a spinning kick, dodging the attack while also delivering a kick with the length of his lower leg. The monster goes tumbling even over end through the air away from Marcus as he lands on his feet easily enough. Before the flailing monster can take him too, Marcus jerks his arm back and the chain tears itself from the beast, making it halt in mid-air and fall to the ground in searing pain. With a massive thud it hits the ground and remains still for a second before it tries to stand. Slowly it gets onto one knee, and looks up.

"Haaa!"

*Smack*

With a fierce attack, Lapis comes up and twirls her body around before sending an armor fisted backhand strike right to the side of its head, sending it rolling away from them all. After it's been dazed quite harshly, Lapis quickly makes her way back to Steven and Marcus. Seeing him free and awake now, it's an immense relief to see him up again. Once she makes it, all three of them stand together and stare at the monster as it slowly starts to recover.

* * *

"You two stay back. I got this."

"What?!" Steven yells in confused surprise.

"Marcus no. You can't—!" Lapis begins to protest but I hold up a hand to stop either of them from continuing to voice their thoughts.

"I appreciate the thought you two, but this is something I have to do." I tell them. They may be slightly behind me but I can tell they glance at each other before back to me.

"Are you sure?" My brother asks worriedly.

"I am…" I answer as the monster lets out a roar and starts moving towards us. "This thing has kept me locked away for days now and I want payback. I will make this thing regret ever trying to break me!" I yell and start walking forward too, my chains scraping along the ground as I go.

"Good luck." I smile as Lapis calls out to me.

"Thanks." I mutter back to them without stopping. We take several more steps until we are at suitable distance from each other and the others before coming to a stop.

"You can't beat me." In order to antagonize me, it says those words to me as it readies its claws towards me.

"Hm." I smirk before whipping my arms outward, making the chains carry the action along them too before they up closer to me as I get ready into my own stance. "You… are a stain on my soul…" I growl darkly to it. I then start swinging arms around in circles around me from left to right. The chains clash against the ground, sending sparks all around me as they repeatedly scratch and tears against the ground all around me. "I intend to wipe you away!" I yell.

"C'MON THEN!" It demonically yells in anger.

"HRAAAAA!" I yell at the top of my lungs and whip my right arm down from above. The chain curls overhead and strikes where it just was. It manages to dodge to its left and tumbles away. Turning myself around, next I bring my left arm down and it dodges my attack yet again. I repeat the process a few more times as it continues to dodge them before taking off into a full blown sprint in circles around me. All the while the chains continue to rain down milliseconds where it just was as my onslaught continues. However I soon tire of the dodging so as soon as I bring my right chain down and I miss, I twist around with my left arm this time in a horizontal attack. My attack hits it right in its back, making it yell out in pain before I follow up by twisting the chain around its ankle. Without giving it a chance to untangle, I grab the chain with both hands and I turn around, pulling it with me and making my target go into the air overhead before slamming into the ground roughly. I pull the chain back once its untangled from it and go for another whip attack. As it tries to get up, the chains whip it again but before I can hit it again, it grabs one of my chains out of the air and holds it at the end.

It begins to grab and wrap the chain around its body as it pulls me closer to it. My feet slide along the floor as I try to pull against it but to no avail. I try to attack it again with my free chain but it grabs that one too, now having both of my chains it reels me in without much resistance. Problem is though I'm still attached to them so I can't simply let go. Once I'm close enough, it grabs both my arms and holds me tight, glaring at me as we stare directly into each other's eyes. It smiles as it sees the vulnerable position I am in. I can do nothing as I rears its head back and I am given the hardest head butt I have ever experienced. My entire world is completely dazed as my head whips back harshly, making me kneel on the ground.

*Crink*

Even through my haze, I can still make out the sound and visage of it pulling my chains up and actually biting them off. I'm still dazed though as it throws both useless chains away and brings its right arm low.

"Arrrrh!" I scream in pain as several sharp claws slice my chest from bottom to up. I am sent flying back many feet back before landing roughly on the ground and rolling a few times. "Ahhhhhh." I hiss as I lay on my stomach in pain. _'Ow… fuck… god damnit.'_ It's agony to move, let alone push myself up but I manage to lay on my back. I look down to assess the damage and I grimace to see the claw marks on my chest that have ripped my shirt and are rapidly reddening. "Fuck." I groan. They don't feel like they went too deep into me, just very very painful.

*Slam*

"Cuh!" I cough out as something slams into my stomach. I look up to see the monster has slammed its right foot right into my gut. I try to pull it off with both my hands but it's too strong.

"I will not inhabit this body any longer with the likes of you!" It growls in my face. "Killing you here will push you away… and I will be the dominant one from now on! Not you!" It snarls at me bitterly. Angered by its declaration to try to shut me down, I bring my right arm around and punch it. It recoils from the punch but doesn't seem to get off me at all.

"Arh!" In fact it seems to have angered it even more if you can believe. It brings its left foot forward and slams it right on top of my left. The moment where it basically put all its weight on me feels like a boulder was just placed on me but now the weight is split between my stomach and my arm. Its left claw then slams against my right arm, pinning that limb down as well. With my body and my arms both pinned to the ground, I'm essentially defenseless now as it brings its muzzle close to my face and its left claw eerily close to my eyes.

"I… am going to enjoy destroying your mind." It whispers in a dark voice right next to my ear.

"You can FUCKING try!" I yell back and spit at it. It recoils from the useless insult but regardless it gets a sadistic grin on its muzzle and it laughs.

It's chuckling comes out low and menacing as it readies to skewer me. And from its aims, I can guess its going for my head. _'Damnit… c'mon… move damnit.'_ I try to push or pull myself away but I can't. I'm completely stuck and at its mercy. It pulls its claw back just a little more.

I don't know if killing me here inevitably destroys my mind, but its been living here a lot longer than I have. It trapped me here the second I came back. This is its domain. As its hands flex, I close my eyes and ready myself for the end.

"Marcus!"

"Pah!"

Instead of immense pain or everything shutting down in an instant, all the weight is lifted off me and I can breathe just a little better, and move. When I open my eyes I don't see the monster anymore. "Wha-" I mutter confused. _'What the hell happened?'_

"Marcus!" Lapis and Steven run up to me from behind as they help me to sit up. "Are you okay? Does that hurt?" Lapis worriedly asks me as she examines my wound but I brush her off.

"I'm fine. It stings but nothing serious." Moving makes the slash marks sting just a bit more but nothing that'll deter me from disemboweling that son of a bitch. _'Speaking of…'_ "Wait, if you're here, then where did it go?" I ask turning to them directly.

"We don't know. We were just about to stop it from killing you but suddenly it was just… pushed off." Lapis explains as best she can but it seems she's just as confused.

"Pushed off? What do you—?"

"Uhhh, guys?" Steven interrupts us with an uneasy voice. We both look to him to see him staring and pointing far off in front of me. Turning to see what he's looking at, I can tell why he's confused. The monster is far in front of us but it's not focusing on us at all. Instead it's trying to slash at the air around it. _'Whaaa…?'_ I think confused as it constantly tries to slash at whatever it can in front of it but nothing seems to work. I'm beginning to think it may have lost its own mind but the way how its body jerks and spasms makes me think it really is fighting something.

"The hell?" I mutter still confused as I get to my feet with the help of my friends but we continue to watch the spectacle. The monster tries to slice forward but I think it misses as its head jerks to the side and its stomach lurches roughly backwards. It's arm is grabbed and roughly twisted before its flipped forward further away from us. Once the lull in the fight presents itself, I focus as best I can to figure out what's attacking it. My eyes widen as I make out two shadow like beings standing in front where it was flipped from. Their incredibly hard to pick up but I can just make out their forms in the darkness. They are comprised of some smoke like effect that makes their forms so I can't describe what they could look like exactly. Both are the same height but the first one looks to have slightly longer hair I can hazard a guess while the other has short hair if the longer flowing smoke on the other is any indication. I'm think there are females from what I can tell but it's still hard to tell. They both stare at the monster as it begins to recover but they don't give it the chance to do anything else. They both take off towards it and as soon as the monster looks up, the second one slides on the ground and sends her foot right into the monsters face as she holds her hands up from the spot on the ground. As it stumbles back, the first one jumps up and lands on her partners hands, who pushes her upwards and sends her forward with a punch to the monsters face. It stumbles back some more as they continue to it back with in-tandem attacks. They move as if they know exactly what the other is going to do and it very effective as their moves leave the monster completely at their mercy.

All the while, the rest of us can only look on in confused as they beings are making a mockery of this thing at ease. Soon their fighting moves closer to us and the monster is thrown to be several feet in front of us. I can hear it grown from its spot on the ground and it was taken such a massive beating, combined with everything else it just went through. The shadows move around and make their way to between us and the monster. As it slowly tries to stand, albeit completely bruised, bloody and barely able to stand, the shadows turn around to us. Steven and Lapis tense up as two pairs of white orbs stare at us, specifically me. While the two are tense they may attack, for some reason I don't feel any hostility. I feel… something else but I don't know what. We stare at each other for what feels like a long time, before they nod. Without any words, they both split up in different directions. One goes to the right and the other left before they disappear completely. "What… were they?" Lapis asks.

"They were like ghosts." Steven surmises but I'm not sure.

"Maybe… I don't know." I answer before turning to the barely standing monster. My curiosity and confusion turns to slowly building anger as it turns to me. "But for now, I need to finish this." I darkly say as I begin to stalk forward.

"Becareful." I hear Steven call out from behind me and I nod. The pain is a thing of the past for me right now but my enemies is all too evident from the look of pain gracing its features.

"I… will not… stop." It barely manages to say as it holds its side with its right claw. "I will never stop. Nothing you can do will keep me from going." It struggles to threaten me still even now. I stop a couple feet from it and while I stick with a neutral look on my face, it grits and growls at me. Angered by me being so close and a lot better off than it, it brings its left claw and tries to swipe at me but it's very slow. I simply lean back as the claws miss me. The action throws itself off balance, making it fall onto one knee and hand with a grunt. Blood drips from its wounds and mouth as it tries to get back up but fails to. "I… will not… against… someone… as weak as you." It looks up to me… as I stare at it with a sad expression.

A new light gets my attention, making looking back to the others to see the white door appear. _'It's time.'_ I turn back to it. "Pathetic." I tell it before I start walking away. _'It's so fixated on fighting… on hurting…'_

"Pathetic…? Pathetic!?" I can hear it move behind me. "Don't you walk away from me! Rah!" It yells at me and I can hear it charge me from behind. I close my eyes and breathe gently as its feet stomp on the ground. As it comes close to me, my eyes shoot open…

*SMACK!*

In reverbating noise, I twist around in the blink of an eye and catch its left claw in my right hand, fingers between all of its claws as the tips are just stopped from my eyes. The look on its face is of surprise etched at the sheer ease I just stopped its attack cold. For the first time, it gets a fearful expression as it meets my neutral look.

I smirk.

*Snap*

"RAAAAAAHHHHH!" It screams in pain as I close my hand and twist its wrist sharply in the wrong direction, snapping the joint in its wrist. I let go of its hand and it collapses onto one knee again, cradling its broken, limp and useless clawed hand. I can almost feel the anger that wells up inside of it and in another attempt it goes for another punch using its right claw. I grab its wrist as it misses me again and tighten my grip on it before bringing my other arm back, the palm of my hand flat and ready to strike.

*Snap*

"Aaarrrghhh! Damnit!" It yells in even more pain as I break its forearm, the bone sticking out of the skin. With both arms now useless to it, it looks back at me with fear, especially bring my right leg up.

*SNAP!*

"Aaaaaaarrgh! Aaah!" It groans loudly as I shatter its knee cap, making it go onto both knees as it writhes from putting pressure on the shattered.

This scene before me is… familiar… but I don't dwell on it I take a few steps closer to it. It's breathing comes out ragged and painful as its injuries start to come in full force, especially since moving is now making it even more agonizing. "You have threatened everyone I care about." I begin to speak, "All the people and Gems I love. Your fixation on fighting, killing and shattering will never see those I care about safe." Slowly my right hand reaches up to my left gem, "For that, I cannot let you live… or exist any longer." My gem begins to glow.

"WAIT!" My hand stops as the handle forms. I look at the monster with a neutral look as its one words stops me. "You can't kill me." It states in an almost desperate tone. I simply raise an eyebrow in question. "Don't you see? I am a part of you. No matter how hard you can try I AM a part of you and I will never be killed. I will ALWAYS BE WITH YOU! EVEN IF YOU KILL ME NOW!"

"…" The scream is loud, dark and demented… but filled with a sort of conviction to them. My look falls as I let go of the handle and it disappears. "You know, you may be right." I mutter. My words seem to put it somewhat at ease as it has a grateful smile. "You're in my mind. Like you said with me, killing me here will give you control and I'll be the one that's forced to take a seat. No matter what we can't get rid of each other." I explain and voice my idea of the whole situation. This thing is a manifestation of the corruption, I think, and it doesn't seem or look like it's going to be easy to take this thing down. After I finish talking, the monster in front of me visibly relaxes.

My head shoots up, my eyes focus and harden as I bring both my hands up next to me, adopting the Ko Gasumi stance. Its relieved look turns to horror as my katana sword slowly materializes into my hands, ready to strike. "But that doesn't mean I can't try."

"N—"

*Shink*

Before it can utter another word, my sword flashes forward and stabs straight into its open mouth. It's eyes widen in terror as my sword cuts clean through to the back of its head. Silence follows us as it lets out a couple grunts before its body goes slack, then glows. It's entire body glows brightly amidst the darkness around us and once it stops getting brighter, it slowly chips and falls away into tiny pieces. The body breaks apart as the pieces flow away in the nonexistent. Soon, there is nothing left, leaving me in my attack position.

Slowly, I move back to standing at full height. I twirl the sword in my hand a couple times before stabbing it into the ground, right where that thing just was. _'I don't know if you really will come back… but I'll be waiting.'_ With that thought, I turn around and start making my way back to the others. Their still standing where they were the whole time and have smiles on their faces now that the monster is gone.

"Is it done?" I look at Lapis as she asks her question. I stare at her for a few seconds, then to Steven, before looking back at the sword in the ground then to them.

"For now." I mutter. Something grabs my leg right when I'm done talking. I look down to see Steven hugging me tightly.

"That's good enough for now." He says through a slightly muffled voice through my pants.

I smile as I kneel down and hug my brother tightly right back. We stay like that for a few moments before I let go and stand back up. Turning to Lapis, it's good, it's really good to see her. See her awake, okay, and well enough that she's not unconscious anymore. That moment when I saw her knocked out next to the Gems on the beach, then the earthquakes, followed by the crash, the Cluster… then that thing. Now that she's here and well, even after the fighting, it's a relief.

I can't help but smile as I pull her into a hug. A tight hug that she returns without question. "I missed you." I say into her ear.

"I missed you too." She reply's back to me. Once we pull away though, I gently grab her face, much to her surprise, and lean in.

I kiss her cheek.

The first time she kissed me on her water tower, it was a little cold… but now, she's not. It's a relief for her to be here. To have helped me.

When I pull back there is a noticeable blush on her cheeks as she stares at me in stunned shock. My smile doesn't leave my face as I let her go and step back. My face falls to the ground as I speak in a somber tone. "The first time we met… I saved you… WE saved you…" I pat my brother's head, who smiles at the inclusion, and continue speaking. "And we helped you get off the Earth so you can go your own way… and now…" I take some more steps back, so now its Lapis and Steven together, looking at me. I let out a few chuckles as I gesture to them both. "Now… it's the both of you that saved me." I do my chest salute, and nod both my head and my upper body to them. "Thank you, for everything."

"You're my brother Marcus." Steven says. "Why wouldn't I?"

I grin wider at his question and nod as I relax myself. "I wouldn't know."

"I'm just glad your back to normal… although," Lapis begins to say and look around, "How do we get out of here?" She asks.

"Well," I begin to say and start casually walking to the white doorway. "If I had to guess, Steven used his astral projection to bring the both of you here, and it only works when people are locked in some sort of mind state, right?" I ask as I walk backwards. They both nod and its by this point that I'm just in front of the door. "Then that means, it's time…" I step back. "I woke up."

* * *

"How long it's been?"

"Only a few minutes. Give him time."

"We barely took that thing down! We can't afford to let that thing out again or else—!"

"Shh! Hold on. He's waking up." The mix and match of different words and voices come in a haze through the darkness around me.

I let out a strained grunt as I feel body was just put through the wringer and is stiff as hell. Almost like I was in a very deep sle- _'Oh, right.'_ The memory of what's happened makes itself known in my head as I finally begin to open my eyes. I'm immediately assaulted by the bright sun that makes me grunt and recoil from the sudden change in brightness. A blur seems to notice my discomfort as they move into my view, shielding me from the direct sunlight. I relax again and do what I can to focus my vision back to normal. As I squint my eyes, the blur starts to take form and once she comes into view, my mouth drops open slightly. "Lapis…"

"Hey you." She smiles as she helps me sit up. "It's good to see you back in the real world."

"Lapis…" I mutter again as I take in her form her very real form. Not the one in the dreamscape but here and now. "Lapis… what the hell are you wearing?"

"…" I have no idea why that is the first thing I say since waking up after being placed in a forced induced prison coma but it just slipped out. Lapis blinks at me before looking down and seeing the outfit she's wearing. "Baseball uniform."

"… Come again?"

"Yeah." Steven walks up, confirming what she said. "We had to play baseball in order to trick a group of Ruby's so they don't go into the barn and send them to Neptune."

"…" It's hard for me to come up with a good enough response to that. With Lapis and Steven's help, I stand back up to my full height and as I look around, I smile as I see the relieved and happy looks of the rest of the Crystal Gems, and that includes Peridot, but it soon turns to confusion as I see the giant ship embedded into the ground several feet away, and the several unconscious Ruby Gems laying around the field. "There's a pool." I mutter as I spot the pool of water next to the barn.

"Technically it's a smaller-than-an-average lake." I look at Peridot as she explains matter-a-factly. I stare at her confused for a second before I do another look around the place.

"What DID I miss?" I can't help but ask.

"Not as much as you may think." Garnet answers as she places a hand on my shoulder. Looking at her more closely, I can see she's been through the wringer as well "But now that you're here, we can finally bring you up to speed… and relax for once." The others murmur in agreement at the idea of relaxing. From everyone's tired, battered, or immensely relieved looks, I can safely say that is something that everyone is going to need now. Even though my body is fully healed, it's still sore from not having moved for so long. I'm even mentally exhausted from the days long confinement was placed in too.

Taking one last look at every single one of my friends, my family, I grin and nod. "It's so good to be back."

* * *

 **This… took… waaaaaaayyy longer than I first thought. I knew I wanted it big but I didn't think I'd bring it to over 17k in word count. I wanted this chapter big and it seems I went ahead and did just that. Certain issues seem to have been somewhat resolved but it also looks like other questions may have cropped up as well from this. All in all there were some moments I liked in the making of this chapter and others… not so much. I'm not too comfortable with the fighting in the mind area but by that point I felt I was taking too long on the chapter. Hope it was good regardless.**

 **Also I hope some of you noticed that I made some references in the chapter that hopefully some of you picked up on, both they are from in real life, and from past fights in the story. My classes are done for the semester so I'm good to continue writing unhindered but I only got a few weeks till I have to go back to classes next semester. Gotta get moving.**

 **Also, I'm happy to have found out that we won't be waiting as long for new episodes and on January 5** **th** **we will be legit getting a new episode on TV I believe for us to see. And that episode will involve our recently revived human, and our favorite human-hybrid fusion stuck somewhere. I'm so excited for what we'll get to see.**

 **Now for the reviews:**

 **MADMatt6:** Yes, I know. I know I am. Thanks for telling me about you name. I never noticed it before and if any other complications like that come up, don't be afraid to tell me.

 **ChimaTigon:** Stuck somewhere between two tectonic plates on the planet… or out gathering her army already. Don't know when that happens.

 **coldblue2015:** Awesome to see you finally have an account here on the site, as well as reviewing again. Yeah only some of the Gems use firearms, such as Peridot and Pearl seeing as Peridot has her own personal revolver given to her by Marcus and Pearl will occasionally use what they have on hand. The werewolf version of Marcus does have the ability to speak but its only when its angry, excited or what have you that it'll speak. I've never actually watched too deep into the "Bleach" show and only ever got like the first dozen or so episodes, so I wouldn't know everything that goes on in the show. Thanks again for the review, glad to see I'm doing so well and I look forward to more of your reviews.

 **MRPenguinShogi:** I'm not much of a sports fan either but I'm glad I was able to navigate my way around some spots in the episode. I'm so sorry the cliffhanger killed you. I hope your alive long enough to read the next chapter when it comes out.

 **I AM YESTERDAY:** Yeah, I'm worried too but hopefully enough people will make enough problems that the idea will not be worth the flak they're receiving.

 **zcdragon64:** Everything is starting to become hectic it looks like for Marcus. He was out of it for too long and it seems someone else took the reins. How everything progresses will be up to debate on whether they make it through this in one piece. Whether there is going to be any new rifts between Marcus and Lapis will be determined by that monster, and each other's actions.

 **serius:** Hopefully it was a good twist nonetheless. Things do look bleak but hopefully if enough people make a lot of problems and obstacles for them the whole thing won't go into full effect. Only time will tell. Thanks again for the review and thank you for the luck.

 **Patriota1993:** We'll see if he can control it. That other side of him seems to have a mind of its own so it'll be complicated trying to hash it out. Wasn't thinking of the relationship being like the Hulk and Banner but now I can somewhat see it. Not exactly but I can see what you're getting at.

 **ivaXter:** Thank you.

 **Bomberguy789:** Thank. It's cool you don't review every chapter. It's nice when you do review but it's not like I can force you to review at every opportunity. You got your life and I got mine. In any case thanks for the review.

 **Cf96:** Thanks.

 **XxSpades231xX:** As much as I want to use Google docs, the problem I have with it is I don't want to be reliant on using the internet to work on my writing. I do like the idea of saving my stuff on the internet instead of ONLY on the hardrive of my computer, but I sometimes go to spots in town where I don't get an internet connection. I like the option of working on my stuff both online and offline. Offline mostly since I like to put my computer on airplane mode to save on the battery's life. I also put my phone and tablet on airplane mode when their charging to help them charge faster. You'd be surprised how effective that is. Now for your questions:

1) Hard to tell. They both have a mind of their own and neither one seems to like to the other.

2) When I was thinking it up, I wanted some sort of entity in him that he must and try to overcome in order to properly live his life, a new element that'll somewhat shake things up for my story. As for the design, I remember from Skyrim the ability to become a werewolf yourself but because people will run in fear when you use it, and the hassle it is to turn back to normal, I wanted something to remind me and somewhat make use of it since I rarely ever used the transformation. I also gave it its own design for being part corrupted and Gem-like with the crystals and smoke effect.

3) Not really. Sorry if your disappointed but I don't really see a need to on a massive scale.

4) Pearl. She's pretty cool, a badass at times and I just love her reactions at certain moments. Case in point: Steven floats, and the Uncle Grandpa crossover episode. I know some people don't like that particular episode, or Uncle Grandpa for one, but I absolutely love Pearl's freak outs in that episode.

5) Kevin… or Ronaldo. But probably Kevin more. Do I need to explain my distaste for that smug jackass? I've got something planned for the race episode.

6) Probably not. On top of as you mentioned it'd be a hassle to plan, I don't think I'd ever feel right or up to snuff in being able to portray another persons OC/Gemsona. I could probably but I'd always feel just a little worried that I'm doing something wrong, even a little. But that may change far in the future. Depending on how the show goes, there may come an opportunity but no gurantees.

7) I don't really have an opinion. Some questions I can easily and quickly but some I can answer with long answers. I won't ask for an increase or decrease in questions and just let people do what they feel like.

Thanks for the review and questions and I'll see you next time.

 **Guest:** Thank you for your words. It's always refreshing to hear compliments and words of encouragement from anyone who reads my work. I never thought I'd actually go this far in this story or how popular it became. It was an 'in the moment' publish and since then I've done what I could to make this story as best I could make it. I'm glad you like how everything is turning out, from the story itself, to Marcus and the progress that's made. As for the pairing, I'm sure the next chapter will give some indication as to what may happen with that… hopefully.

 **And before anyone asks about the Ruby's, they'll be explained in the next chapter don't worry, but that'll take awhile. I'm gonna get back to working on my other stories as I have neglected them too much for my liking. Thank you all for your continued support. Hope you liked this long chapter I made, fave, follow, review and as always to everyone, have fun reading.**

 **And HAPPY HOLIDAYS and a MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!**


	65. 63 Steven Floats

So good. It's so good to be back home. Well not my home exactly but being around the area is nice. Now that everything is done, we warp back into the beach house in front of the temple door. _'Wow. It feels like so long since we've been back here.'_

"We're finally home!" Steven happily shouts as he spreads his hands in excitement.

"Oh god so good to be home!" I too am enthusiastic to be back.

"Oh hello house!" Steven shouts as he runs up to his bed while Garnet turns on the light. "Hello, bed!" He says as he flops onto his bed. He then gets up in front of his TV. "Hello, TV! We've got some catching up to do." He greets the inanimate object. He runs by us as he moves to the kitchen. "Hello, kitchen, hello, food- ohhhh!" He begins to greet the food as he opens the fridge but collapses back as he grabs his nose in disgust.

"Uh oh. That cake go bad?" Amethyst asks as she pokes her head to see the spoiled food.

"That was a cake!?" I look skeptically at Steven as he asks Amethyst surprised.

"Oh come on Steven." I begin to say as I walk up to him and look in. "It can't be that—"

*SLAM*

I close the door so hard and fast the metal warps where it closes as well as my handprint on the door.

*SSSSSSSSTTT*

I weld the door closed all the way around until I'm sure nothing short of an explosive or heavy-duty machinery can force the thing open.

*CRASH*

And out the window and into the ocean the fridge goes.

"Haaaa… haaa… haaaaa…" I breathe heavily at the exertion I just exhibited. The others all stare at the broken window before looking back at me. It's now I realize just what I did and blush in embarrassment. "I… may have overreacted a bit." I look at Steven. "I'll buy you a new fridge."

* * *

' _Oh good god. What the hell was that!? I swear it reminded of that fungal monsters birth place in that Cowboy Bebop episode.'_ I shudder at the thought of what I had saw in the fridge. Whether my reaction was too much or not, and even if we dipped the entire thing into acid to sterilize it, I don't think I would like to eat anything out of it anytime soon. In any case, the cursed fridge that was forced to house a cake for a long time without our supervision now lies at the bottom of the ocean and I am driving home in my Ford truck with Steven's new fridge strapped to the back. I don't know the exact type of fridge I got, all I know its big, its shiny, its got a screen on it so you can link your phone to the to-do list you write on it and stuff. A bit of an upgrade to the old one he had but it's not hurting my wallet whatsoever.

I still get that stipend from the Iron Kings every so often as per our arrangement. _'It's a good thing I made it. Otherwise I can't imagine the hell of having to deal with them during the whole Cluster phase, the robot fights, Rubies… me._ ' I sigh and shake my head at the thought before focusing on driving. Anyway, Peridot and Lapis are still back at the barn where they've decided to make it their home of sorts. I even offered to have them room at my house, I have plenty of room, but they didn't want to impose and wanted a true place they could call their own.

I can respect that and after saying goodbye to the two, Lapis especially and making absolutely sure if they needed anything, they could ask me without hesitation. Now that the OG Crystal Gems are back home, and as much as the hassle it is in getting the new fridge, I do kind of miss these moments we had back before all the death-defying craziness transpired. "Now I wonder just what else is going to happen now that we're back home." I mutter to myself as I drive onto the beach and look at the night sky. _'This is just what was needed. We need this time to relax after everything. I always did like the night more. The atmosphere it gives off, the moon light, Steven's floating in the air, the moon Is nice and bright. Awesome.'_ I sigh and lean back in my seat as I causally drift towards home.

"…" I turn the corner where the statue is revealed. "… STEVENS FLOATING IN THE AIR?!"

*CRASH*

At the sudden revelation I figured out, I slammed on the brakes in surprise and the fridge crashes into the back of my truck, breaking my rear clear window area and showering me in glass. "Oh come!" I complain as I look at the damage before I remember we have a bigger problem. "STEVEN!" I unhook my seatbelt, turn off my truck and go outside before I start running.

* * *

"Hmmm…"

"Well, Garnet?"

"Hmmmmmm…"

"WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING!?" Pearl yells loudly at the lack of actions or movements every is doing. "Steven is falling; he needs our help. I'll catch you, Steven!" She yells to the very slowly falling child as she begins to run around the beach with her arms out in an effort to try to catch Steven for when he hits the ground… eventually. Meanwhile Garnet is still humming and thinking, Amethyst looks at the flailing pearl as she runs all over, and Marcus continues to stare at his brother in surprise with his mouth hanging open.

"I think it's gonna be a while." Amethyst begins to point the obvious to the hysterical Gem but for some reason without a word, Garnet suddenly jumps out the picture. Everyone stares at the departing Gem in curiosity as she lands all the way back to town.

Glass and windows break, a car alarm goes off and she goes through several trashcans. "I've found a phone." Garnet returns with a phone in hand and puts in Steven's number.

"Whose is it?" Amethyst asks.

"That's not important." Garnet replies as she waits for the call to go through. Meanwhile Marcus angles his head to look at the screen of whose it was.

"Kofi?! You stole Kofi's phone?! You know how much that guy hates us!" He complains and points out to her but she continues to wait. He sighs and shakes his head. "Garnet, you could have just asked. I have Steven on speed dial on my pho—" He begins to say and reach into his pocket but finds nothing. "Where's my phone?" He begins patting himself down until he remembers why he doesn't have it anymore. "Oh, right. Crap." He mutters sadly at the memory of when he was captured by the Iron Kings and how they took him by surprise.

Meanwhile, Steven pulls out his phone when it starts ringing. He doesn't bat an eye at the caller name before answering. "Hello?"

"Ground control to Steven Universe."

"Bro. Are you alright?"

"Steven! Are you okay?" Multiple people begin to say over the phone in worry, some more than others.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." Steven replies to them all, alleviating their worries that he's in trouble or anything like that.

"See, he's got this." Amethyst says but its not as cut and dry as he said.

"He's still floating, Amethyst. He's not fine." Marcus tells her bluntly.

"Yeah, he's right. At least not exactly." Steven says over the phone still. "I think this is some kind of new power." He informs everyone of what may be going on.

"Rose could regulate the speed of her descent." Garnet explains out loud that little fact that Rose was able to do back when she was alive.

"Control how fast she fell? Wow, pretty cool." Marcus comments impressed but as he stares back at Steven, his impressed face turns sour. "Although, not right now it is."

"Steven, try falling a little faster." Pearl says to the floating child over the phone but as always, its never that simple.

"I can't figure out how, and it's taking forever to reach the ground. Can you guys just keep me company until I land?" He asks of them to do. The Gems, and hybrid, on the ground look at each other before they smile and nod.

"I think we can do that." Marcus tell him.

And what happens next is several hours of the Crystal Gems having to keep the kid safe and comfortable while he slowly descends back to the earth. Amethyst and Marcus make sure the kids fed and alright as they throw him food. While Marcus's throws are pin-point accurate for Steven to catch without problem, Amethyst wasn't as good, if her nailing the passing seagull was anything to go by with the chips bag. They would have had a problem if it was a soda can. Garnet decides to play with Steven in a game of checkers to keep him occupied, although it wasn't much fun for him considering his opponent had future vision so more often than not, he lost to her because she either figured out a pattern on the board, or had it planned our from the very beginning. Pearl meanwhile makes sure theirs nothing on the ground that'll hurt Steven when he lands as well as coming up with ideas to try to get him down to the ground quicker, but mostly safely.

Already its getting to the crack of dawn as the sun is barely coming in over the horizon, signaling morning, as Steven tries to guess the picture drawn in the sand. "Is it aaaa… gun? Wait, isn't it an AK?" Pearl gives Steven a thumbs up while Marcus hugs Garnet and sniffles, muttering how proud he is of Steven. He gets over it soon enough as the Gems all hear the sound of an alarm going off in the beach house.

"Hey, Steven, why is your alarm going off?" Amethyst asks the kid from down below. While its weird for the gems, for Steven, it's a crisis.

"Oh, nuts, my donuts!" He cries out to himself before he pulls up hi phone again. "Guys, I need to get down right now!" He loudly demands.

"What's the hurry, dude? You got nowhere to be." Amethyst says while Garnet is behind them fiddling with Steven's Cookie Cat alarm clock.

"He's clearly very tired from being up all night, and he's eager to get some sleep." Pearl assumes but Marcus shakes his head.

"No Pearl. That's not it either."

"He's right! Please, there's no time to explain, just help me down!" He shouts through the phone's speaker.

"How're we supposed to do that?" Amethyst asks.

"Maybe we can weigh him down?" Pearl proposes.

Without any other ideas on what to do, they all get on board to trying to figure out how to get Steven back on the ground. Pearl grabs a heavy leather jacket and jumps up to put it on Steven. "It's not enough, keep it coming!" Steven says. Amethyst is next as she gives him a bowling ball. "More more." He demands and more he will get. Garnet is next with the granddaddy of them all as she gives Steven a giant boat as she jumps up and drops it on him. "Nnnnnn, I don't think this is working." He struggles from the weight of the giant ship on him, on top of the bowling ball and jacket on him. Despite all that, he still falls to the ground at the exact same pace without any added speed. The rest of their group decides to add their own weight too it as the Crystal Gems all jump into the air, with Garnet carrying Marcus, as they land on the deck of the boat. Marcus decided to take it one step ahead with the weight as he carry's a LAW rocket launcher on his back, his KIVARRI crossed over it, a bandolier of grenades, his Berretta's holstered and his swords in hands. Marcus, Garnet and Pearl stomp and jump on the deck of the boat to try to get the speed pushed while Amethyst hangs on the edge as her wrestler persona Purple Puma. All in all, its for naught as he's still not moving. "Nothing's working, is there anything else you could put on me?" He asks hopefully.

"Just this alarm clock." Garnet replies as she shows Steven the front of the clock, the res letters showing it's 7:26am. In reality, the alarms weight should already be added to the overall weight since its in her possession.

"It's past 7:00." He sighs in disappointment as he stares at the almost half hour past time he was supposed to have already gone to the Big Donut. "Thanks for trying guys, but there's no point any more." He says depressed. He was really hoping to get that fresh donut after so long of not having any. A mission to save the planet kind of got in the way of that.

"Sorry, Steven." Amethyst apologizes to the kid and drops.

"Sorry, Steven." Pearl apologizes too and jumps off.

"Sorry, brother." Marcus too jumps off. Unlike the others graceful landings, Marcus's is still loud and noticeable.

"It wasn't meant to be." Garnet says to the kid before she follows everyone else down.

"Huhhh…" Steven sighs sadly as he turns over and drops his entire payload to the ground… including the boat.

*… Crash*

"Ahhhhh! Did you just drop a boat on me?!" Marcus screams out after almost getting crushed by the boat his brother let go.

"It was 'too' meant to be." While Steven sulks in how he's not going to get his donut, the others get to work brainstorming how to get him down.

Marcus climbs out from his spot on the sand, dusts himself off and stands next to the others. "Okay. How do we get him down?"

"We tried weighing him down and that didn't work." Pearl muses as she tries to think of more options.

"Maybe we try to do some way to propel him instead to the ground. Instead of using increased gravity pressure to bring him down, maybe we can use a different type of means to push him to the ground." Marcus proposes they do.

"Yeah! Like a jetpack!" Amethyst enthusiastically says with a grin.

The other three stare at her confused by the idea and the item she wants to use. "Amethyst, jetpacks go up. Not down." Garnet tells her.

"Yeah, but if he did have a jetpack, he could just put it on upside down." She clarifies what they need to do.

"We don't have jetpack to give him. Although, I can kind of give him something somewhat with the same propulsion." At this, Marcus pulls the LAW rocket launcher from his back and holds it out. "These things give off a lot of force when someone fires them. If Steven aims this thing upwards and fires, the force of shooting it just may push him towards the ground." While it sounds like a good idea, the critical look that Pearl gives him is less than good.

"You want to give Steven an explosive ordinance rocket and fire it blindly into the air!?" She loudly asks, as well as possibly angry at the idea.

"I'm gonna disarm the warhead so all that's going to land on the ground is a hunk of metal." He tells her what he's going to do. It's one thing for someone to shoot a bullet into the air but its an entirely different matter for a rocket to go up and come back down while its armed.

"Guhhhh!" Pearl growls still at the idea of him using any sort of firearm as it is, she brings up another matter that they need to work on. "Even if we can get him down today, what's to stop this from repeating at some other point in the future?" Marcus and Amethyst get thoughtful looks like Garnet smirks. "If he can't control his power—"

"It's alright."

"HOW is it alright!?" Pearl asks incredulously to the fusion at the interruption.

"By now, Steven has realized that his powers are tied to his emotions, just like I knew would happen. He's used the memories of happy and sad things to land safely behind us, ready to give us a hug." She calmly explains to everyone with a smile on her face the whole time.

Next, they wait for her vision to come true.

"Pahhh!"

"Poooh!" Somewhat. Both Steven and Marcus faceplant into the ground with Steven on top of his brother.

"Close enough."

"Ow." Marcus groans, slightly muffled from having his face in the sand.

"Guys!" Steven gets and goes to run and give the gems a hug.

"Wait! You have somewhere else to be." Garnet quickly stops the kid in place.

"What?" Steven asks confused but he doesn't get definite answer.

"There's no time, run to the Big Donut. Run!" She shouts and points in the direction of the establishment.

"Uhh, okay!" He replies hastily and breaks into a run towards the donut shop.

Almost all of them watch as the kid is a speck as he runs to his destination. "… I would've liked a hug." Pearl comments.

"Awww, Pearl." Marcus says from his spot on the ground as his head rolls to the side, freeing his face from the confines of the sand. "I'd be happy to give you a hug except…" The tone in his voice gives off the idea that he's being sarcastic. However, their is the slightest bit of concentration on his face, as well as the barest of twitches on his arms but no movement. "… I can't move."

"Whaaaaaat? C'mon man, quit joking." Amethyst says as she nudges his side.

"No seriously. Nnnn! I can't move." He repeats what he said. A bit of concern starting to edge into his voice.

"Come on, man. Quit joking."

*Kick*

*Crack*

"!" Garnet and Pearl flinch from the sudden loud crack that can be heard by everyone as Amethyst freezes in place after kicking him in the shoulder.

"I swear I didn't kick him that hard!" She quickly and hysterically denies.

"Wait, you kicked me?"

The Gems all have looks of confusion at the question Marcus asks them all. They look at each other and back at him a couple times before Pearl crouches next to him. "Here. Let me check something." She grabs his head and moves it around a couple times, 'hmm'ing every so often as she checks him. It's when she hears more cracking and popping that she finds out what happened. "Yes. Just as I feared. It would seem when Steven landed on you, he broke your spine."

"Wait, really?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so." She confirms it again to the injured hybrid.

"Wow… crap… this sucks."

"Soooo, what now?" Amethyst asks as she too crouches down next to him, same with Garnet.

"Well, I'm going to give fix myself using my regeneration ability. You three are going to carry me to my house and leave me there until I wake up while at the same time make sure Steven doesn't find out he made me a vegetable. Sound good?"

The Gems nod even though Marcus can't see them too good. "I think we can manage that." Garnet says.

"Good. Give me a second." He closes his eyes and concentrates for a second to activate his ability. Some jerky movement with his back, along with his neck, and in no time he's back to normal. "Ahhhh. Okay, that's better." He says as he rolls himself onto his back and rolls his neck a few times. "Now, I am going to lose consciousness soon so please leave me on my bed for the time being."

"Yeah yeah, we got you." Amethyst waves him off but as he looks at the others, they smile encouragingly.

"Good good." He collapses onto his back as his body begins to shutdown. "Oh and remember. Don't tell Steven." And his head collapses back and his eyes close. One last thought goes through his head before he goes unconscious. _'And so, this is the third time Steven has inadvertently caused me pain.'_

* * *

"Well," Garnet grunts as he picks up the almost lifeless but not really body of their friend and begins their treck to his house. "This was quite an interesting development on our first day back."

"Sure was." Amethyst comments as she walks behind with her arms clasped behind her head.

"Indeed." Pearl follows.

* * *

 **I… Am… BACK EVERYONE!**

 **Well I never left but I'm back to this story at least. Sorry again for the long as hell delay but I'm back to giving regular updates one after another for all my stories. Hope you all like how this chapter played out. At some points, like the fridge and when Marcus was fake crying, I wanted to be a little… different as opposed to the serious logical attitude I had most often when writing this story. Don't expect it to happen more often later on but we'll see how things play out. Anyway, I don't know everything there is to know when people break their spines and gain paralysis at what vertebrates to what portions of their bodies so if for whatever reason it seems off, sorry.**

 **In any case, besides some new games that have come out that have gotten my attention heavily, along with a couple assignments and projects for my classes that'll keep my attention, things should be relatively tame for me in terms of getting more of my chapters out.**

 **Also, just to let you all know I was able to watch the newest episodes and their were interesting. One thing I want to point out is if the creators don't devote an episode to the colony Lars and the Off Colors are planning to go to for parts, chances are I may fill in that part. Depending on how things continue to fair in the show, I may take advantage of that point if I can.**

 **Here are the reviews:**

 **MADMatt6:** Haha. Yeah I figured as much. Usually what I try to go for in the reactions to some of my work.

 **seruis:** Glad you think so. Some parts of the fight in his head I was a little iffy on but nonetheless I'm glad it was still enjoyable. Thank you again for the review.

 **Guest (Ch.50):** … Uhhh… okay.

 **xXSpades231Xx:** Yeah. That whole issue has been off and on lately and I'm still worried things aren't gonna go the way in terms of a free internet way for the general population. In any case, just try to keep up to date on how the fight is going for Net Neutrality and you can judge for yourself when to be happy, sad, ecstatic or worried about the whole thing. I also didn't know you could use Google Docs offline and its something I'll give a look see to hopefully make sure I don't have a repeat of losing my stuff again.

I have heard about the Berserk anime but it never got my attention as much. Plus a ton of sites and other people have kind of spoiled much of the major of the show so its still not in my interest. Thanks anyway.

 **Guest (Ch.64):** Not really sure on that part. It would be an interesting development but I never gave it much thought. I'll keep it in mind though.

 **zcdragon64:** It was all good to write. Lapis has had her moments in the show so far but I would to give her more when I can. In any case, Peridot does care about Marcus a lot considering he's been the most supportive of her and even though she was given the job to stop him, actually going through with it can be more difficult than just saying, hence the hesitation after the first time she stopped him. Even so, it just gave Lapis the opportunity to really step up and show how powerful she can be. Progress on the standing between Marcus and Lapis is making headway and what'll mean in the future is slowly getting there. Thank you for the review and I'll keep it up.

 **Ultimate Spider Girl:** That would be something. However depending on how the show progresses will we see that save come to fruition. Still, I'm glad you like my story and I hope I continue to make it as enjoyable as I can from here on out.

 **Cf96:** Thank you very much and a Merry Christmas, Happy New years and any other holidays that may pass to you too as well.

 **RogueMuttley:** I've never actually seen the full Bleach series myself but from what I can guess of how the show goes, I can see that happening. Anyway, I'm glad you liked it and thank you for the review.

 **RookieSiegeMaster:** Marcus? No not yet. Me in interpreting them into the story? Yes.

 **Miss Tri (Ch.63):** I wasn't too sure on devoting the chapters perspectives solely to Lapis but when it came down to the finished products and how people were fond of the in-depth thought processes that came from this character, I'm glad I was able to nail it pretty well. I do what I can to make things flow and tie together when it comes to my OC Marcus and the rest of the characters in the show. Just to make him feel a part of them and I'm glad things are coming together nicely still.

 **Miss Tri (Ch.64):** I didn't want to give the monster as completely full mindless and driven only by instinct, ergo the ability to talk and express its feelings, even though they are pretty messed. Marcus in of himself is pretty OP as he is which is why I wanted to give him something of an enemy that can almost go on par with him in his struggles. And what's worse for him is the fact the creature is stuck in his own mind. What most people tend to forget is that mental problems and injuries can be just as hurtful to a person than any physical wound. And from what Marcus has had to deal with, he's had plenty of inner battles and injuries. I wanted to give the Crystal Gems a chance to fight the thing but of course not too much that they'd be able to take it down easily. I'm glad I was able to choreograph the fights as well as I did and add my own little things here and there.

It does feel good to show the changes my OC has to the main group and I am glad it's all working out. The ghost entity's in his mind will be touched up on later on, don't worry. Until then, I hope you continue to look forward and love my work as I get it out there for you and everyone else.

 **IDarkSoukI:** Thank you very much. Unfortunately my Spanish isn't good so even though I had to have another translate what you said, I appreciate the words nonetheless.

 **Fanfiction Scrutinizer:** I appreciate what you said. Unfortunately that's not how I do things with my stories. If there's one thing I always look for and prefer in fanfiction stories is whether or not they stick to the main plot of the series they are based off of. What I like most is the changes the author makes to the already developed storyline to see what they would do differently. It's something I always try to take note of and that is something I'll do with my own stories. At times, yes I will diverge from the main plot and do my own moments here and there but until I see the actual ending to the show, I'll pretty much always return to the plot where Marcus will do his own things to help and protect the Crystal Gems.

As much as I would like to stop and brainstorm, I know the benefits to doing so, but I continue to worry that I'll have a repeat of my failed story projects in my past. Not just on this site, I had some other stories I worked on and I did stop every so often to think on things but eventually it got to the point that I just kept making excuses to not write or lost the motivation entirely to write anymore. I will not let that happen again and if in the future I have to rewrite some stuff, then so be it. Thank you for the advice and I'm sorry my way of writing isn't up to your preferences. Unfortunately, I can't please everyone.

 **NJ:** So are you talking about adding those types elements and people to the story to either try to deal with Marcus or the Iron Kings? If so, I think I was thinking up something like that before but I'm not a hundred percent sure. Still have to flesh out some parts of my story in the future but I think what I have planned, you and everyone else will be plenty surprised and possibly excited.

 **Sorry again everyone for the delay in this chapter and hopefully I won't wait hold off as long as before. In any case everyone, go ahead and fave, follow, review, don't, whatever it is you want to do, and as always but most of all to everyone of you, have a great day and have fun reading.**


	66. 64 Drop Beat Dad

That was awkward. I'm glad Steven didn't stick around and notice how he broke my spine but I'm glad its still good. It would incredibly suck now of all moments to be turned into a vegetable after everything I went through. Would be even worse if Steven had found out but as long as I and the others don't say anything then we're good. Besides that though, everything is alright with us overall. Now that I'm back in my own house instead of sleeping back in the barn, I've had to reactivate all my equipment to make sure it's all still in working order. My robonoids, my droids, are up and about again and just working on whatever it is I have them set to. Mostly repairing and fixing up any and all my vehicles, weapons and equipment that may need to be fixed.

Mostly while my automated stuff is working on whatever I tell it too, primarily… I've just been relaxing when I can. After everything that we went through in basically saving the planet and the events that led after, we are indeed in need of a relaxing time to ourselves. For me, its both physically relaxing, just laying about, watching TV and whatnot; and mentally relaxing. The thoughts of what I… in a way, almost did to those I call family still haunt me, not to mention what led to the… fight, and I am just completely done with doing anything extraneous for I don't know how long. I'm just going to relax and pick back up my research whenever I feel I'm ready.

"Thanks again for helping me take all the stuff out, you two."

That doesn't mean I'm willing to lend a hand to my friends when they ask for it. That's what Steven and I are doing right now, helping Sour Cream get his music stuff transported and ready for set up for the event he's going to play for. Nothing too big for our part so I'm fine with lifting some things here and there.

"It's the least we can do." I reply to Sour Cream as Steven and I come walking out of his garage carrying some boxes filled with his equipment.

"No problem! I've always wanted to be a roadie. Whether they're lifting the heaviest equipment, fighting off crazy fans, or just offering moral support. Roadies work behind the scenes to make all magic onstage possible." Steven happily explains his possible role as a roadie.

"We both handle the heavy lifting and you handle the moral support. I'll handle the crazy fans." I clarify our roles, should they be needed.

"Or the crazy crowd. Remember that one time you got into a fight, Marcus?" Sour Cream reminds me of that one incident with Stevonnie.

"Ohhh, yeah." I sigh as I remember the fighting that took place.

"Still, I only really needed the lifting, but I guess we'll see what happens tonight." Sour Cream offers and takes the offered box from Steven while I place mine in the wagon. "Woah!" Unfortunately, being half gems ourselves, our definition of strength is bit… different than normal humans so a simple lifting by Steven and I means really heavy stuff for Sour Cream as he almost drops the box Steven gives him. Still he manages to put the box in and we're about ready to go until someone happens by us. Sour Creams stepdad, a local fisherman named Yellowtail comes towards the garage carrying a briefcase filled with… fish for some reason. Like seriously the heads are poking out from the sides as they drip water as he walks. As soon as he sees us though he drops the box when he notices Sour Cream with the wagon and starts talking… kind of.

"Maa! Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma." I have no idea what Yellowtail is saying but Sour Cream does.

"No, I can't be back before 10:00. I'm doing a show tonight, Yellowtail." He informs his stepdad.

"Ma-ma-ma! Ma-ma-ma-ma, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma!"

"It is too a viable career! 80 percent of Germans make their living Deejay'ing! Why can't you just accept that I don't want to be a fishermen like you? Gah!" I don't know where Sour Cream got those statistics he walks away frustrated regardless.

Steven and I stand their awkwardly at the small family disagreement we just witnessed. "Ahhh, bye Yellowtail." Steven and I wave goodbye to him and we follow Sour Cream with the wagon of equipment.

"Mr-mr-mr." Yellowtail says bye in his own language. Seriously can't understand him but I do got the gist of it. We catch up to Sour Cream soon enough and walk with him.

"You okay, Sour Cream?" Steven asks him concerned.

"Yeah. I just can't deal with my stepdad on my case all the time. Why would I want to bring home fish when I can bring home sick beats? If he has to 'Ma ma ma' so much about it, he doesn't have to come." Sour Creams goes off on a small little rant about what he feels before lightly grabbing his stomach. "Ugh. All that arguing messed up my stomach." He says as we stop in front of Gregs 'It's a Wash' car wash. "I'm gonna go use the bathroom." Sour Cream runs off inside to use the restroom while we wait here outside.

"Well, that got pretty complicated." I can't help but comment what happened back there.

"Yeah. That was a little… messy. You think they'll be alright?" Steven asks.

I don't have a definite answer so I shrug my shoulders. "Hard to say. Though they seem a little annoyed with each other, I don't think they'll outright hate each other or for too long. Who knows. Maybe they'll start to see each other's reasons for doing what they do and patch things up." I offer. My experiences with family hasn't exactly been the best but that doesn't mean other peoples is the same. I highly doubt Sour Creams family is going to get anymore complicated.

"Yeah, maybe." Steven agrees with me as we continue to wait for the DJ.

"Wait! don't leave!" Speaking of family, Greg comes running towards us with a hose in one hand and a sponge in the other. "Waxing is free! Oh. What's up, stu-ball? Hey, Marcus." He calms down once he sees us and greets.

"'Sup, Greg." I causally greet him with a nod and small wave.

"Hey dad. We're just helping Sour Cream take his gear to the warehouse." Steven quickly explains to him what we're doing.

"Oh, like roadie, huh?"

"Yeah!" Steven is still pretty enthusiastic about the idea of being roadie. "W-what about you?" He asks his dad.

"Ahh, Same-old, same-old. Not too busy." He nonchalantly answers, somewhat hinting how he's not been getting enough business, if his frantic movements and offer earlier was anything to go by.

"Don't worry. I'm sure it'll pick up soon." Steven tries to cheer him up.

"Thanks, kiddo."

"Remember Greg if you ever need some money, you know I got you." I offer to him. I still have a small fortune starting to buildup from my own pile and as well as the stipend I get from the Iron Kings so I'm pretty much good for quite awhile.

"Hehe, thanks Marcus but if its all the same to you, I'd rather not use money taken from a criminal organization." I get an uneasy look as I embarrassingly rub the back of my head.

"Yeah, fair point. I can see that." Before things can get anymore uncomfortable, suddenly a large yellowish colored bus comes by and parks next to us.

"Woah! Look at the size of that thing." Greg mutters in amazement at it while holding the hose. "Guys, don't tell them about the free wax." He whispers to us.

"Get me one for my car later and you got a deal." I playfully whisper blackmail him. Nonetheless we subtly shake hands as the driver or owner of the bus steps out for us to see.

A guy walks out sporting yellow shades, a brown jacket with a green shirt underneath, dark blue pants with a wallet poking out with a yellow chain, and yellow shoes with wings on them. Something about this guy feels… greasy to me. Or something not pleasant really. "Marty?" Greg says confused.

"Who?" I question who exactly the person is that he apparently knows.

"You mean your rotten old manager? I'll protect you, Dad!" Steven protectively hugs his dad from the side. _'Oh so he's Greg's old music manager. Okay, sounds like they had a kind of falling out.'_

"Eh, Don't worry. I got a hose." Greg says to Steven as he pats his head and holds up the hose in question. Even so if this guys a threat, I'm pretty sure I can take him.

"So, hehehe, this is where you work now, Star Child?" This Marty guy says to Greg. "A rundown old car wash? Guess the music biz wasn't as good to you as it's been to me." _'Was that an insult?'_

"He does well enough." I comment as I cross my arms but I think it goes unheard by him.

"Uh, hey, Marty. Long time, no see. This is my son, Steven." Greg greets his former manager before introducing Steven. Now does the guy look at Steven in somewhat surprise.

"Woah! Guess I'll call you Star Child Jr." He says and begins laughing and for some reason the sun decides to make his glasses shinier as they sparkling and reflecting light at us.

"Ugh." Steven groans as he blocks his sight from the gleaming man.

"And uhh, this is Marcus. A friend of the family." Greg introduces me. I don't offer much to the man, simply a head nod. He doesn't come off as a good person if Steven and Greg are acting this… cautious to him you know.

"Awesome."

"Anyway, uh, things are totally fine here in old Beach City, but, uh, if you need me to wash that huge bus of yours, it'd probably help me out." Greg offers his services and winks at the man.

"Listen, Star Child. I can do you one better than a carwash. You and I have some unfinished business." I can't help but reflexively reach into the underside of my own jacket to grab my gun when I see Marty reach into his. I relax however as I see him pulling out an envelope instead.

"Eh, sorry, Mr. U. I totally clogged up your toi—" Sour Cream comes into the picture and begins to say before he spots Marty. "WOAH! Dad?" _'Huh?!'_

"Sour Cream?"

"W-what are you doing here?" Sour Cream asks his… dad, apparently.

"Uh… eh hehe S.C. Oof! Just look at you. When did you get so tall?" Marty forgoes the envelope and takes a closer look at his kid.

"Uh, like nine years ago."

"Ooohh." I hiss quietly.

"Whoa!" Marty mutters surprised before chuckling nervously and clearing his throat. "Sorry I've been gone so long, but you know how the music biz can be, r-i-i-ight?" Marty uncomfortably asks his kid that's left pretty much all this time.

"No. Can you tell me about it?" Sour Cream asks and Marty proceeds to explain.

"Well, you see, the music industry is like a big bee hive or factory where…"

"Man… I can't believe they're related." Steven comments and to be honest, I am too. More so the fact that we're actually meeting him now of all times. The surprise really is what's hitting me.

"You don't see the resemblance?" Greg asks Steven and for a second, my brother proceeds to try to examine the two of them and find the resemblance that Greg what I can tell, their faces maybe but mostly their hair is the most resemblance I can tell between the two of them but that's about it.

"Kinda?" His response comes off as more of a question and I don't blame him.

"…every day, and on weekends." Marty finishes explaining whatever he was explaining before Steven interrupts.

"Hey, Sour Cream. Sorry to interrupt, but should we haul your equipment over to the warehouse while you catch up with your dad?" This seems more like a family situation for Sour Cream so I'm on board with my brother's proposition.

"What's this about equipment?" Marty asks and takes note of the wagon of gear we have. "Hello! What do you got going on over here, my friend?" He takes a closer look at it.

"Just getting ready to set up for this semi-annual deejay night rave thing I do in Beach City." Sour Creams quickly explains to his dad.

"A rave, you say? Hmm…" Marty gets a thoughtful expression on his face before it looks like he gets an idea. "S.C., I have a great idea. I've decided to hang out in Beach City and, um… make up for lost time with you. And while we're… chillin', I'll promote your little engagement." For some reason, I call bull on Marty's reasons but I don't want to make things awkward so I keep my thoughts to myself as the man gives his card to his kid.

"What's this shiny card with your contact info on it?" Sour Cream asks.

"Just a little something we pro music types call a laminated business card."

"This is so legit!" Sour Cream is easily impressed by the piece of plastic.

"Man, you're so lucky your dad's in the biz. Throwing a cool semi-annual Deejay rave thing is a classic father-son bonding experience." Marty says as he lightly headlocks his son.

"More classic than fishing?" Sour Cream says, referring to his stepdads insistence for him to work as fisherman.

"Just wait! We're gonna cram years of bonding into one spectacular event!" Steven doesn't look too happy or comfortable with the whole thing and neither am I but this is Sour Creams thing so it's his decision on how we go about it.

* * *

We find ourselves at the warehouse where Sour Cream usually DJ's his events. It's not really a pleasant place for me considering the last I was here, I got into a fight with several guys… and stabbed.

"This is it? It's so… puny. I mean, what is this? A concert for ants?" Marty states holding up the music playing device that looks like Gameboy, not impressed in the last about the setting or the layout.

"You tell me any other place that basically spells out 'Rave'?" I decide to counter the guys view of the place. Honestly, abandoned and run-down places and warehouses to me are prime locations for raves.

"I'm sure there are better places." He pretty much ignores my question with a vague answer before Steven speaks.

"We can invite some ants." Steven proposes the wrong type of 'aunts.' I pat his head regardless.

"Aunts, uncles- music is for everybody." I like Sour Creams optimism and willingness to branch out on his audience.

"Listen, buddy, you want to reach people, right?" Marty asks as he grabs Sour Cream.

"Yeah." His kid answers.

"You want to hold them in your little hand, right?"

"Uh, I guess so."

"You want to squeeze them until their eyes pop out!" _'What the hell type of analogy are you trying to convey for your kid?!'_

"Uh, you lost me a little." Thankfully, Sour Cream doesn't follow.

"What I'm saying is, if you want to bring people in, you can't play out in the sticks! You got to be where the people are!" Marty proposes and begins to lead his son out of this place.

I look to Steven with an unsure look. "Steven, I'm not too sure about this. What do you think?"

"Well, my dad told me what Marty was like when he was his manager. He wasn't a likeable person." He answers.

"I kind of got that."

"But its been years since then. Maybe he's genuinely changed now that he's met his son." Steven offers his optimism with the barest hint of a smile.

"Hmmmm." I hum lowly at the idea as I stare at the father-son duo walking away.

* * *

"Now this is more like it! We'll set up right here in the san." Next we find ourselves on the beach that to him seems like a prime location for a concert. He may rub me the wrong way but he at least knows a good place to throw a concert.

Steven makes his voice known as he clears his throat. "As Sour Cream's roadie, I have to voice my concern. You threw a show here on the beach for my dad, and judging from what he said, you didn't do a good job at all." Steven recalls and explains. _'That does explain their distrust. Bad history.'_

"Okay. Can I real talk with you for a second?" Marty proceeds to pull us in close with his arms. "Real talk. I made a lot of mistakes before, when I was your dad's manager, and- real talk?- I was a jerk. But- real talk- I've learned a lot about myself and the music business since then. So I can tell you, with certainty, things aren't gonna be like last time. Real talk." _'This guys says real talk a lot.'_

"Wow, Yellowtail never real talks with me." Sour Cream wistfully says.

"That's what it's like to work with a professional, kid. Now, hold on. I'm gonna work some magic." He lets us go and pulls out his phone before making a call. "Marty here. Talk to me. Yeah, I know I called you…" The three of us look at each other while Marty goes to talk on his phone.

"You sure about this Sour Cream?" I ask the DJ.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, are you sure you want to do this… with him? Before the guy never even gave you a phone call and now all of a sudden he wants to try and be all buddy buddy with you? Just suddenly drop in and try to act like everything is all well and good?" I finally express my disbelief and unsureness about the situation.

"Oh, come on Marcus! Just because your dad was a jerk doesn't mean mine is." He retorts. I stare at him as he realizes what it is he just said as both he and Steven's eyes widen in slight horror. "O-oh. Wait, Marcus I—"

"Sour Cream… this is your DJ concert your playing. I just want to make sure everything is alright with you. If you want to work with him, I won't stop you." I say to him in a soft calm tone. Looking to the side, I see Marty has wrapped up his phone call and waving for us to go to him. Before I start walking I turn back to the other two. "But please… just be careful." I offer a small advice before heading off to see what more Marty wants. Before I do go, I glance to see their downtrodden looks.

* * *

A couple hours pass and already the equipment Marty has called in is here, along with the advert he had provided. "Check this out, broski." Marty opens up one the of the side compartments on the bus to show us a bunch of containers holding a ton of equipment for Sour Creams use.

"Wow! I've only seen gear this good on the internet. Is this for me?" Sour Cream asks in surprise as he holds something. Not sure what since music isn't my thing but its got him amazed so it must be good.

"It's for us, my main cool cat!" Mary says cooly.

"Wow. I can totally rave to this."

While the two of them are gushing a little at the equipment, Steven notices the others guys Mary hired to start carrying the equipment. The other roadies. "It looks like you're all set on roadies, huh? Guess we'll just carry ourselves home. C'mon Marcus." Steven sadly says and turns to walk away. I shrug and am about to follow before Mary stops us.

"Hey, Star Child Jr., catch!" He quickly says and tosses something to Steven, where it lightly hits his face before falling onto his hands. "You're in the big leagues now, little roadie." He says as Steven holds the tag. "Heads up big guy." He tosses one my way, which I catch before it hits me and I look to see it says 'Official Roadie.' I smirk a little at the offer while Steven is giddy with happiness at the officialness of the tag as he puts the tag around his neck and runs to the bus to help. He picks up a gigantic box that seems incredibly heavy with ease, as normal as it is for the both of us. "Geez! What does Greg feed that kid?!" Marty asks in surprise but I can't help but chuckle and shake my head.

' _If only he knew.'_ I think. Regardless, I take it one step further and grab two of the same gigantic crate that Steven got, hoisting the right on my shoulder and the left under my arm. _'The benefit to being half-gem.'_ I catch a glimpse of Marty's surprised face and its awesome. Even when I pass by the other roadies its awesome the way they gawk at me and my unbridled strength. As soon as I place the crates down on top of Steven's, we high five and look out into the open sea. Although its not as open because we spot Yellowtails boat slowly drifting near the shoreline, the fisherman in question watching us with some binoculars. More specifically, he's more than likely keeping an eye on Sour Cream. _'Ohhh, this may not be good.'_

* * *

Some times passes and before long, as the sun begins to set, we manage to set up the stage that Sour Creams is going to use for his DJing. Steven is doing some last minute checkup with the mic while I work on the lights above. Steven and I have already made a name for ourselves in town basically as a couple people call out our names, Universe especially. Steven made more friends of pretty much everyone In town but I don't mind. "Don't mind me, folks! Just a humble roadie doing a mic check." He fiddles with the mic a bit more before nodding. "This mic looks great!" He turns back to me up top. "How's it going Marcus?" With one final cord connect, the lights go on above the bus and the people cheer.

"All good." I reply and for added flair for the hell of it, I do a flip off the top and land on the stage next to Steven. More people cheer out so I offer them a small wave before the both of us walk off to Sour Cream on the side.

"Hey, Sour Cream, we're ready to go whenever you are." Steven tells him with a nod from me.

"Okay, I guess I'll go out and get started." Sour Cream, a little nervous about the whole new and improved set up, says and begins walking up but Marty stops him.

"That's not how we do things in the music biz. Let a proper hype man set the stage for you." He offers and instead goes first.

"Woah. I've never been properly hyped before. Thanks, Dad!" He thanks his dad so we watch as he goes to address the crowd. I can't help but roll my eyes as Marty does the moonwalk up to the mic and fingerbangs the crowd. Nonetheless the crowd cheers at him once he's at the mic.

"It's some guy!" Some guy calls out. Literally, I don't know who as they are but Marty still likes the attention.

"How's it go- Is this mic even on?" Marty begins to say but pauses as he notices the mic isn't on. A flip of a small switch and it turns on. "How you feeling, Beach Ci-taay!" He addresses and hypes up the crowd. He succeeds as the crowd goes off in cheers for him. "You know, I've always been someone with good tastes, so you got to believe me. This show is special to me. It's personal." He begins to say somewhat sincerely to everyone. Steven happily elbows Sour Cream a little while I pat his shoulder. _'Huh, maybe I was wrong about him.'_ "Because I want to introduce you to a fresh, raw experience, to a whole new flavor, to a brand new… Soda!" _'Okay, jumped the gun too quickly.'_

"What?!" Sour Cream asks in surprised confusion. I too am confused at the sudden change but not really surprised as much. The guy kept giving me bad vibes the whole time.

"GUACOLA!" Marty shouts the sodas name as he opens his jacket to show the slogan title. Suddenly, the text 'Guacola' appears on an electric billboard below the lights I was working on, everything lights up with a green neon shade, and the other roadies uncover a giant Guacola Can Speaker thing. Even with all the flash he's showing, the crowd of people aren't as enthusiastic as him as they start to mutter an confusion at the turn of events, even with air horns blare out as Marty continues to advertise the odd drink. "That's right. Guacola! The World's first guacamole soda. Each can comes with the power of three whole avocados! Now, come on, Beach City. Are you ready to guac?" He asks the crowd as he pulls out a can of the soda and tosses it into the crowd. It nails Ronaldo in the stomach, making him fall to the ground while Jenny manages to catch hers. I shouldn't be laughing at the scene, but I lightly chuckle still.

Steven takes out a Guacola Can and hands one to me before we decide to take a sip of it. Steven gags while I spit out the stuff on the sand. _'Oh god! This is foul! I like guacomole on most Mexican food but that was…'_ I can barely finish the thought as I spit out the aftertaste.

"Ugh! This is terrible!" He voices my thoughts on the beverage before looking a bit closely at the can. "What the… From concentrate?" Steven says in slight horror at the info. Looking to the crowd shows they're not really filled with joy for it either, their filled with disgust as everyone sees how bad it is, even Ronaldo as he tries it on chips but that didn't improve the taste apparently. Unsurprising, Onion likes it as I watch him chug some more.

"Dad!" Steven runs off as he sees his dad and Yellowtail together nearby while I stay and try to figure out what to do.

' _Okay, this isn't good. Really not good. Already I'm starting to see the people leave the beach in utter disgust. If people leave and this turns into a really sour event, then chances are people won't go to anymore of Sour Creams concerts since it was his face and image that people were coming to in the first place.'_ I turn to the water tower that has the advert of Sour Cream on it. _'This won't just be one bad event; it could lead to future problems for Sour Cream at almost every turn if people hate this.'_

"Muh! Muh muh muh! muh muh muh muh muh! Muh muh muh! Muh-muh!" The loud yelling of the language that Sour Creams family use snaps me from my thought as he seems to giving whatfor to Marty.

"What did you say?" He asks his son as I walk closer to the stage to better hear.

"Muh… Ugh. I said I don't need you or guacola to do what I wanna do! I never have! I can do this show on my own!" Sour Cream basically denounces his dad right then and there. While I feel bad it didn't work out for their relationship, I feel like Marty didn't deserve any kind of reconcile with his son.

"Fine." Marty grudgingly mutters and walks off the stage once the Universe family walk up from behind me. "Hey, Universe, I only came here because I'm legally obligated to give you this." Remembering what he originally came here to do, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out the envelope again. Before handing it to Greg.

"Huh?"

"Don't say I've never gave you nothin'." He states and walks off into his bus before starting it up. There isn't anything special on the outside of the envelope besides it labelled to 'Starchild' on it. Even so, Marty drives off in the bus with his roadies and all the advanced gear he brought, effectively shutting down the concert.

"Well, I guess that's it. So much for me and the music biz." Sour Cream sadly states as he walks over to us.

"I'm sorry, Sour Cream."

"Sorry man." Steven and I offer our condolences to the blundered event to our friend.

"Thanks." He replies, still sad. Soon though, what sounds like an engine and a horn goes off in the distance and seems to be getting closer.

"What's that noise?" Greg asks and we look towards the water where the noise is coming from. Coming full speed towards us is Yellowtail in his boat, waving his arms to get our attention while murmuring.

"Ma ma-ma-ma-ma!"

"Aw, man! it's my stepdad." Sour Cream mutters annoyed at his before he begins walking towards his stepdad. "He was just waiting for me to fail so he can get me and put me to work on his boat." He resigns himself to defeat as he trudges towards Yellowtails boat as he hits the beach and disembarks. "Fine. Take me to your big smelly boat so I can fish my life away!" Sour Cream jumps the gun a little as Yellowtail takes out a box from his boat and shows it to Sour Cream. A quick check shows its all of Sour Creams original sound equipment.

"Ma-ma-ma, ma-ma-ma, ma-ma-ma."

"It's… my old gear?" Sour Cream questions confused that his stepdad has that stuff in the first place.

"Ma-ma ma-ma-ma-ma-ma ma!"

"What? you want me to play?"

"Ma-ma-ma, ma-ma-ma." They continue to have their moment together. I may not be able to understand Yellowtail but I can tell their starting to reconcile with each other now and that's very good.

"Gee… uh… thanks, Yellow Dad." Sour Cream offers him a handshake.

"Ma-ma-ma!" Yellowtail doesn't want to be so formal and instead goes straight for a hug with his stepson, making him laugh in response.

"Good one, dad!" He says before turning to both Steven and I. "Hey, Steven, Marcus, since you're still my official roadies, help me set up."

"Yeah! C'mon Marcus!"

"Right behind you!" I agree with my brother as we grab the box and get to work on the set up. The proper set up. What we were supposed to have in the first place.

Because Sour Creams old stuff isn't nearly as complicated as the one Marty brought, Steven and I are able to set it up in record time. So while my brother is up top finishing up the last of the checkups for his stuff, I'm down below doing a sort of mental checklist of what we need to do.

"Hey, Marcus." Sour Creams walks up and greets me from the side.

"Hey Sour Cream. We're almost done. Stevens finishing up your station while I'm thinking if we're missing anything."

"That's great, but… uhhh…"

I turn to Sour Cream as he looks uncomfortable for some reason. "What's wrong? Did we forget something?"

"No. No its not that. It's just I wanted to say I was… I'm sorry." He finally says what he wanted to say.

"Sorry? For what?" I ask.

"About earlier. When I mentioned your dad and all. That was… really uncalled for and I'm—" He begins to say but a hand placed on his shoulder from me stops him. He looks a little confused as I give him a smile.

"Dude, its okay. I don't care. It's in the past and it will not play into my future. You didn't hurt me, Sour Cream. I can assure you of that." I sincerely say to him. While most people of their pasts may not like it when their friends may or accidentally mention it as they argue, like I said to Sour Cream I don't really care. What's happened has happened and right now I have much more to do with my life. For instance, Steven gives the thumbs up from behind Sour Cream and walks off stage. "Besides, you got a concert play." I grab his shoulders and turn him around before lightly pushing him forward. "Now get out there and knock 'em dead."

"You got this Sour Cream!" Steven cheers him on as he's pushed towards the stairs and then begins climbing them.

"Oh! Right! Thanks again guys!" He thanks us and goes up to his station and begins getting himself familiarized with his stuff while Steven and I give him some thumbs up in encouragement.

Barely a minute later and Sour Cream is ready to go.

"Let's kick it!" Sour Cream shouts and just like that his performance starts. His signature move of throwing glow sticks happens as the incoming crowd is showered in them where they begin to rave to the beat. A cool thing we did was use the lights on Yellowtails boat for Sour Creams show and its working beautifully with the lighting. Already the crowd begins to dances with the glow sticks Sour Cream threw, including his mom Vidalia, Yellowtail and Onion on top of him, with the prior two raving with glows and the latter still drinking a can of guacola. All in all, it's a pretty good performance without a doubt that Sour Creams reputation is still safe.

"You know, the music biz can be really tricky." Greg comments as we the Universe family stand off to the side and watch the event.

"I'm sure Sour Cream will make it big on his own." Steven believes in him and I nod along.

"I've got a good feeling about him. If he was able to turn it around from the guacola mishap, I'd say he's got a good shot at it." I voice my opinion. People were leaving in droves from the bad drink debut and now with Sour Cream taking the reigns again, its starting to become fun again for everyone.

"Yeah. That soda did not taste good." Steven comments and I chuckle as I nod.

"Definitely. Although Onion seems to like it."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised." Steven and I share a laugh at that as Greg proceeds to open his envelope.

"Even if he doesn't make it big, Sour Cream'll be okay, as long as he's doing something that makes him happy. Eh, you know, it's not about the mone-Eeyeeeeeeeeee!"

Steven and I look at Greg weirdly at the sudden high-pitched noise he makes. "Dad?" He asks his dad before Greg gets a wide large smile and hugs his son close to him before showing what it is he got. Looking at the slip of paper, it almost looks like—

"Ten million dollars?!"

"WHAT?!" I yelp in utter surprise and shoulder myself right up to them, seeing the check and all those zeros.

"You're rich!"

"Son of a—" I can barely finish my words as my eyes widen while I stare at the multiple zeroes on the check. _'Holy-! I don't have near this amount of money!'_ I can't help but think as I stare at the suddenly rich car wash owner. "Greg." I say to him in a dead serious tone and bring him in close with my own single arm hug, making him let go his own and look at me weirdly. "My man. My suddenly rich compadre. I have my squad of construction droids ready and waiting to start building. You buy the wood, plaster, steel, copper, ceramic, whatever you need and in a day I can have your dream mansion built." I offer him with a far-off hand wave. "Complete... to your exact specifications." I finish with a smile.

' _This is going to be awesome.'_ I think happily while they look at me oddly.

"What's he staring at?"

* * *

 **And there it goes. Nothing extravagant here but just a simple chapter in my opinion to be honest. However that may not be the case in the next chapter as for the next few ones, I actually have something special planned for Marcus and the others when they go.**

 **Before I get into that though, there is something I want to make sure everyone knows and why I'm going to be working on this story non-stop for the next month. Again, the whole battle for Net Neutrality has continued to escalate and apparently, June 11** **th** **is when the limitations on the internet are supposed to be put into place. That is not going to be good. Not at all and it continues to scare me on what it means for this site and both my work and the ability for you all to continue reading. That is why until the date passes and we find out what's going to happen exactly, I'm going to work on this story for as much and as long as I can before our ability to freely read and watch things on the Net are gutted you know. Things aren't completely all bad though. Some days ago the Senate put it to a vote on a repeal for the FCC to take away Net Neutrality and they voting went in our favor. The Senate voted YES to keep the internet as it is now: free and open for everyone. Now if the same voting in the House can go the same way, then the battle will be over and the internet will stay the free way we all know and love. Crossed fingers and hopeful thoughts.**

 **Not wanting to leave off on that, there is another matter I think we all need to discuss.**

 **Rose Quartz… or is it Pink Diamond?**

 **I'm gonna be honest with you all, as soon as I saw Rose shapeshift into Pink Diamond and we saw her Quartz gem was actually the top view of her DIAMOND… I was breathing fast, hard, and I very calmly stood up before gently laying on the ground and with a far off look to the ceiling with a smile on my face. I have no idea if I'm actually happy about this or not, all I know is this makes things so much more interesting for the show… and whole lot more work for me.**

 **Seriously everyone. I have to rework a lot to make my storyline now fit this new development… and I'm not angry. Really I'm not. Annoyed but in reality, this just makes things more interesting for me and I'm still excited for what more can this story throw at us to completely make our minds go 'OH MY GOD!'**

 **This… is going to be a fun journey everyone.**

 **Reviews:**

 **ChimaTigon:** I am not sure. I remember reading and hearing so many of them over my life but I never really put much thought into my favorite. I guess maybe Beauty and Beast. I think in his instance Marcus may have some of the… beast in him, you know?

 **Serius:** Yeah I wanted something tame compared to the usual serious stuff with some small comedy sprinkled in. Glad you like it.

 **Cf96:** Thank you.

 **Agent blue rose:** Good to be back!

 **xXSpades231Xx:** Yeah things are definitely something as everything progresses. Technically I think its season 3 and it may be a while till we hit any of the future seasons. Man that's going to be something when this story progresses to that part. Now for your questions: 1.) He'd play along with it for now until he gets his friends to help by stealing back the blackmail information.

2.) Very very surprised. Although how surprised depends on what exactly changes for him. I think a lot of people can agree that suddenly finding yourself the opposite gender will be a BIG surprise.

3.) Not particularly. I mean I have some chapters already planned in the future where Marcus will go through some stuff with different people so those will be surprising and life long lessons as it is. Chapters focused on him and at least one other person… not sure.

4.) In a million years when human evolution takes on the next big step.

5.) Nope. Too much work. Too many things to worry about, as well as people trying to kill him and usurp his authority. Too much of a hassle.

Thanks for your questions and review. Take care.

 **FractionOfASecond:** Thank you.

 **Zcdragon64:** It is good to be back and I'm glad you checked out my other work. I'm also glad your confident in my future work still being great. I hope I don't disappoint.

 **Light Seeker 001:** That is still somewhat up for debate. To be honest I've been trying to wrap my head around a bunch of different aspects of how the storyline of Steven universe goes. Like for example, "Was 'The Answer' episode point before or after Pink Diamonds 'death'?" OR "Was Bismuth bubbled before or after 'The Answer'?" With that last one, it'll be dependent on whether Bismuth knows about Jade or not because she joined the Crystal Gems after 'The Answer.' So its stuff like that that racks my brain on what to do. Even so, in the end I think Marcus will be able to convince her about his point as being just Marcus.

 **NJred2000:** Now that you mention it, that may be something. I'll think about it.

 **DatXeno91 (Ch.54):** It was. Very was.

 **NJred2000:** That was always a possibility but something I never really wanted to actually implement. We don't really have any leads or idea as to the other life in space that the Gems species in general have faced and while it would be interesting to add something like that, I don't think I can come up with a whole other species to add and integrate into my story and all. It's an idea but currently I don't think its something I'll ever actually do. Thanks anyway and for the input.

 **So for the time being people, I'll be working on this story non-stop. I wish what's going on with the Net wouldn't be the reason why I'm doing this but at this point we'll see how this goes.**

 **As always everyone, fave, follow, review, whatever you want to do. But most of all, have fun reading and make sure to have a great day.**


	67. 65 Empire City

Greg… rich… wow the statement still doesn't feel right. This is the man that has to live in his van and car wash in order to make ends meet and now the man is suddenly rich beyond most people wildest dreams. So unreal but frankly, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. After finding out he was given a massive amount of money for some reason or another, we waited the next day once everyone has rested up and now we're finding out exactly how Greg was able to accumulate such a wealth.

And that's why we are at the back of Gregs van having watched a commercial on his tv that has the song that Greg himself wrote. When a large corporation or fast food chain restaurant uses something you made over a long and repeated use of time, your kind of entitled to a portion of the money that was attained as a result of its use, hence Greg's 10 million fortune.

"Whoa! Your song is on TV!" Steven happily shouts after seeing the commercial.

"Yeah. Apparently, Marty sold my song as a burger jingle, and now I'm filthy stinking rich." Greg says as he shows us the check again.

Steven lets out a happy sigh as he sees the small slip of paper worth a ton of money. "The sweet stench of success."

"I still say you should have let me build you a home man." I tell him, again.

"And I told you, I don't need one. Especially not one as big as you kept insisting." He reminds me again. I'll admit, I may have been just a little too… excited in getting started in making Gregs home but I really do think he needs a proper place to rest his head and live out his life. Unfortunately, he has been very insistent on me not going overboard in any house construction, or not on board at all because he completely scrapped any ideas for me to make any sort of house for him. I'm a little miffed at the shutdown, resulting in me angrily muttering all the while.

"What is this?" My mutterings aside, Pearl looks closer at the TV curiously at the song that's playing.

"You know, when Rose came to my concert the night we met, I was playing this song." Greg reveals with a bit of glee in his voice. I guess being reminded of the song that helped him realize his love for his wife, and now that helped score him enough money to be a millionaire, has put him in a slightly happy state.

"This is what did it? Burgers?" Pearl asks confused. I guess she's referring to the song that kind of started the whole thing of Rose and Greg falling in love. Something tells me its not that easy.

"It wasn't about burgers back then. She probably would've like this, though, right?" Greg asks as he points to the TV, where the little burger mascot is doing a little dance… or something I don't know.

Pearl takes a long hard look at the last of the commercial before letting out a sad sigh. "… She would have loved it." She says without looking at everyone. I guess being reminded of Rose, she's not really in a comfortable mood as she walks away, clearly a little upset.

Greg for his part groans at the state Pearl has been put in. I pat his arm as comfort. "Don't worry about her. I'll go talk to her." I offer to him and begin to follow her around the van. I see her sulking a little there but as she sees me does she turn right around and make her way to the beach house. _'Oh come on.'_ I shake my head and begin following after her. "Pearl! Come on! Pearl talk to me." I begin to ask of her but she just continues walking away. It's only when we make it into the beach house that I finally catch her. "Pearl, come on." I grab her shoulder. Not forcefully but the action does make her stop.

"Please Marcus. I just… don't want to talk."

I don't let her off that easy however. "Pearl. Since I've come to live with you all I've seen the sheer uncomfortable state you always place yourself in when it comes to pretty much anything that involves Greg." I step closer to her side so she can see me out of her peripheral vision. "It's obvious this can't keep going on. Not forever. You have to do something to reconcile this… or you'll never find peace." I say to her what she needs to do. If she continues to avoid Greg, continues to avoid the elephant in the room that appears whenever they both are close together, then their will always be this gnawing feeling of tension and frustration in the air. At some point they need to talk and soon before something bad might happen.

After a few moments, she finally turns to me. I give my best expression and supporting smile for her to go through with it. She gives me a small smile in return.'

*SLAM*

We both jump as the door to the beach house suddenly slams open with a grinning Greg and Steven right there. For some reason they are humming and really joyful about something as they begin gathering stuff around the house into some bags. Pearl and I look at each other confused but as she sees Greg she gets cold feet and begins to talk away.

"And let's bring Pearl!" Whatever they were doing, Steven suddenly points at Pearl and says.

"What?!" Greg is kind of surprised at that while I am just a little confused on what they are doing.

"… I don't know. Past experiences have taught me that three is a crowd." Pearl makes the excuse not to go.

"Steven, me and Pearl haven't gotten along that well since uh- well, since I started dating your mother." Greg whispers to his son on why this may be a bad idea.

"Aw, come on! We're all a big family. It'll be great. Just you, me, Pearl, and don't forget mom." Steven makes things all kinds of awkward as he lifts his shirt to reveal his gem. The others gasp a little while I feel uncomfortable at the insinuation.

I grab his shirt and proceed to slowly pull it back down. "Nooooooooo." I slowly draw out the word.

"Oh! Hey Marcus you can come too!" Steven suddenly shouts as he looks at me. "On our little vacation with us." More confused looks and mutters go off from everyone.

"What? Really Steven? But Pearl did say that threes a crowd." I remind him of that.

"Yeah, three. With you it'll be four." He points out too.

"…" Now I am incredibly confused at the choice of reason Steven went with as my mouth opens and closes a few times. "IIIIIII… don't think that's how the saying goes… but I guess if you really want me to go I can't really say no now can I?" I say with a small shrug.

"Yaaay! Vacation!" Steven shouts happily and jogs up his stairs to his bedding area. "Let's get packing."

The others don't voice any disapproval of me tagging along and nod along. "Alright. Let's get to it." I'm aboard with the packing and Greg and Pearl get ready to grab anything we might need. Before I go though, another thought makes itself known in my head. _'Hmmm, vacation huh? A time to relax…'_ I slowly turn to the front door and stare out.

* * *

"Empire City!" Steven gleefully shouts the name of the city as he jumps out of the van with his arms spread wide.

"Relax Steven. We'll be able to enjoy all of the city while we're here." Greg tells his son as he too steps out.

"Sorry dad! I'm just so excited to be here on vacation. We haven't had one in forever. Especially you Pearl." Steven comments as he looks over at the passenger side door, revealing Pearl as she steps out.

"Come now Steven. I don't NEED a vacation."

"Well at least some of you guys need one." Greg comments before looking around. "By the way where's—" Greg begins to question where their tag-along is until they hear the revving of an engine make itself known come up from behind them. Marcus's Falcon car comes around the corner and slows to a crawl before parking next to and just a little bit a head of Greg's van. "Speaking of, there he is. Hey Marcus!" He waves as the driver gets out.

"Hey guys! Sorry I'm late." Marcus replies as he gets out and waves back to them. "I just had to grab something. Why don't you all head in and we'll be in soon." The nod so Pearl, Steven and Greg walk right in, for some reason Steven is carrying a stack of bills. _'Wow they did not waste time in cashing a large portion of that check. For this trip, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.'_ Reaching into his car, he goes ahead and pulls out a small duffel bag that has some stuff he brought. They are supposed to be there a couple days so its just some change of clothes and stuff for him to use. In any case, once he slings it over his shoulder and walks over to the other side of his car, he stares up at the large expensive hotel that Greg booked their rooms at.

* * *

As I look up at it, I can't help but let out a long sigh. "Whelp, we're here. This sure is something."

"It doesn't look that great."

I chuckle as it turn to Lapis as she steps out of the passenger side door and stands next to me. "C'mon Lapis. You can't tell me this place doesn't look amazing?" I ask her directly but she simply shrugs her shoulders.

"It's alright. Still looks the same from the sky to be honest." She says, not really caring about the whole thing.

I shake my head and begin walking in. "C'mon. Let's at least go check into our room."

"Marcus…" Lapis calls my name, making me stop and look back at her. She looks down and uncomfortable about something as she rubs her left arm with her right and doesn't look at me. "Are you sure about this? Me being here? I… don't think…"

"Lapis, come on." I give her a comforting smile and place my hand on her to emphasize the point. "Over past couple months, we have been through a lot. A lot of fighting, hurting, complications and obstacles so on and so forth almost non-stop that have pushed us to our limits. We need a moment to ourselves. A moment to relax and recharge ourselves." She looks down at the memories, a little sad. "Lapis." I gently place my finger under her chin and lift it so she can look at me. "Today, we have fun. We relax. C'mon, show me that smile." I ask of her. It takes a second but I too smile as her lips curl upwards into that of a sincere smile towards. "There we go. Doesn't that feel better?" She nods as I take my hand away. "I'm glad. Let's go check in." I wave her in and we proceed to go.

The big reason why I decide to bring Lapis is because… well, I miss her. When she came back to the barn, I was unconscious and when I did wake up I wasn't… myself. Then the fighting, getting back home and so much crap happened that we couldn't really do anything. For so long she was gone when she went to Homeworld and the time she spent when she was back on Earth was her holding back Jasper and keeping her imprisoned. We've barely had any time to relax and recuperate ourselves and when Steven suggested we take a vacation, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for the both of us finally get some R&R. Lord knows with what we went through, we need it. Hopefully, we can finally rest up.

* * *

We were able to check in but as it turns out, the Universes were pretty… generous with their money because apparently while Lapis and I were talking they had paid the hotel staff a ton of money for some luxuries. Apparently, the hotel we are at, 'LE Hotel' is a fancy hotel that kind of spares no expense in catering to the rich and powerful. Greg may not be powerful but he sure is rich, which is why the staff pulled out a musical number they did along with some other luxuries and completely moved their focus to Greg, Pearl and Steven. Already I can tell this is going to put a dent in Gregs new found fortune what with the music, plus the customized suits I heard they had tailor made for Greg, Steven and Pearl on such short notice. Stuff like that ain't cheap and while they all are resting in their room, I think, I've opted to show Lapis around the city instead so we can find some places to hang out and not be swarmed by the hotel staff. As soon as we were pulling out, I swear I saw some of them get some predatory looks of greed at the sight of my supped up and upgraded car.

So now we are driving around the different streets just taking in the sights. "Alright, so the hotel wasn't much to brag about, to your tastes at least, but what about the rest of the city?" I ask my passenger as she leans forward a little, looking up through the windshield to watch the different lights and buildings pass us by.

"Okay okay, I'll admit. When Steven showed me around, this place looked nice from the sky but now… yeah I can see the appeal. In a way, this kind of reminds of Homeworld in a way." She says, a bit of amazement in her eyes as she stares at everything.

"Really? How exactly?" I ask as we come to a stop in front of stoplight.

"It's not exact but somewhat similar. Big, shiny buildings and structures both big and small for the most part." She explains, even pointing to nearby where two buildings close together, one a skyscraper and the one next to it is only a few stories high, emphasis. Soon her eyes look down to the people walking on the sidewalks. "Although theirs fewer soldiers in comparison."

"Yeah I figured as much." I say before pulling forward once the light turns green. "Not everyone human is a soldier, or fighter of any kind for that matter. They just go about and live their lives how they see fit." I say offhandedly but as I think about it, there's something else I should probably ask. "Not every Gem has the choice to do what they want… do they?"

"Nooo…" She mutters sadly. She then looks up as she remembers something. "Except maybe the Diamonds. They kind of do whatever they want you know. Telling the rest of us lower tier gems to do this and do that. All for the good of 'Homeworld.'" She almost hisses the last word in slight anger. Clearly the topic has delved into a sensitive point for her, and slight anger to go along with it if her clenched fist is anything to go by.

' _Can't have that. We're supposed to be on vacation.'_ I tighten my grip on the steering wheel before speeding up just a little. "Forget Homeworld!" I tell her firmly and loudly so she focuses on me now. "Your not there anymore. You're here on Earth now where you can do anything you want. Whether god or bad, you have a lot more options here than you do with the Diamonds." I make sure she knows it.

"Yeah, Steven mentioned that to me awhile back. But what can we do here?" She asks.

I open my mouth to say something before I realize I don't really know the first thing we can do here. _'Huh. What can we do?'_ I probably should have looked up what Empire City exactly has to offer but I was so focused on grabbing Lapis and bringing her hear to have fun, I forgot how we were going to do that. "Oh. This may work." I mutter as we come upon a colorful sight of tents, constructible rides and stands.

"What is this place?" Lapis asks as she notices I am pulling into the parking lot associated with the place we are pulling into: a carnival.

"A carnival. A fun place that people go to to have a good time." I say as I get out of the car. Lapis does too while I walk over to her and we gaze at the various rides, as well as hearing all the shouts of enjoyment and the bustles of the rides going off.

"Really? How?" She asks, now a little curious at what this place entails.

I give her a smile and gesture forward towards the entrance. "Let's find out shall we." She returns the smile and we go in.

* * *

If I had prepared ahead of time, I would have found out some better spots for us to hang out at but I guess a carnival can work too. Afterall, its not like I can take Lapis to any fancy restaurants Empire City may have to indulge in some fine cuisine since… well, Gems don't eat and I don't think Lapis is the type that wants to. At least not now. Nightclubs and places involving music won't work either since that kind of entail dancing and I do not want to bring up bad memories for her with the insinuation of fusion. Kind of sucks that dancing leads to fusion and has ruined it for her. Still with the carnival, she may not be willing to eat some of the food but there's still more to do, like the rides and the stand games we could play.

Unlike the rest of the city, the carnival here is placed in the park of the city so its only a temporary location before the carnies have to pack up and move but for now we enjoyed ourselves. The first thing I did was take Lapis on the biggest attraction that all carnivals or theme parks have to get peoples attention: a rollercoaster. Since it was part of a quick put together carnival, the rollercoaster ride wasn't exactly the biggest you'll ever go on but it was enjoyable nonetheless. To be honest, it was actually the first time I ever rode one but after dealing with so many other more adrenaline inducing experiences, *Cough*waterspire*Cough* it paled in comparison to some of them.

Lapis herself didn't seem all that excited with it either. Mostly a 'meh' expression by the end of it and I don't really blame her. We went on a couple other rides after until now we are walking past some stands with various games we can play to win prizes. "So, what do we do here?" She asks as we stop by in front of one of those ball throwing games where you have to knock over some bottles.

"Step right up! Step right up! Come try your hand with a toss at some bottles!" The carnie worker behind the stand shouts to all the passerby's. "Three dollars gets you three balls. Knock one set down and you get yourself a prize." He gestures to the smaller stuffed animals on the sides of his booth. "Completely knock all three sets down and you get yourself the big prizes." He then gestures to the big giant stuffed animals hanging overhead. You know the kind of animals that are almost too big for the girl that the guy is trying to win it for.

"It's pretty straight forward as he said. Theirs different sets of bottles and all you have to do is throw a small ball at them to knock them over."

"That's it? That doesn't sound so hard." Lapis comments but I can only chuckle in response.

"Ahh, but that's the thing. The thing with these carnivals is that more often than not they'll have something about them that makes beating the games harder than they actually are. To get people to pay more to get more chances and retries." I explain to her what this might entail. As I look at the bottles, I think on what this guy at the stand has done to make this hard. "My guess, he might have glued the bottles together so they don't fall down so easily." I surmise. Lapis gets a look realization and nods.

"You there! Step right up!" Suddenly the worker spots me and immediately singles me out to everyone. "Come! Try your luck and win your pretty lady a prize." He challenges me to do right off the bat. A quick look to Lapis shows her looking a little confused at the man and when she looks at me, I simply shrug and walk up to the stand.

"Ehh, why not." I answer not really caring about it but I guess I might as well do something. After all, I'm sure it'll be a nice memento of our time here.

"Very good sir." The guy says and off the bat he doesn't come off as trustworthy. I mostly say that what with the slick hairdo and the sly smile he has that doesn't bode well for me, or any customer that walks up for that matter. "Just three dollars and you'll get your chance. Remember, only one knocked down stack of bottles and you get the small ones. Knock all three down and you get yourself a big one." He gestures to the bottles aligned behind him on a wide stand with three different stacks of five bottles each, before gesturing to the small prizes on the sides and then the big ones up top.

"Alright then." Easily enough I put down three ones and he places the three balls down on the counter in front of me. After taking one in hand, already I can tell this is a ploy because the ball is not that heavy. Not enough mass inside to offer a lot of force to hit the bottles. _'I'm gonna have to make up for it then.'_ Looking intently at the first stack of bottles, I clench my hand on the ball and ready myself in a pitchers throw before heaving it hard at the first stack. Of course I have to limit my throwing strength because if I go as hard as I possibly can, I'm liable to shatter the bottles. Even so, all but one of the bottles are knocked off and tumble to the ground. _'Okay, that's one.'_ I grab another ball and aim for the right most stack of bottles before throwing at them too. Again, only one bottle remains standing on that one. A couple standing by who watch me throw groan a little.

"Oooooh. Tough break kid. So close to the big prize."

Lapis and I look at the worker in confusion. "What do you mean? He knocked down two of them and only needs that middle one. He still has one ball left." She points out but I have a sinking feeling as to what he's insinuating.

"Well little lady, let me break it down for you." He smoothly tells her. Lapis scowls at how he talks to her but he continues regardless. "You see those two bottles on either side still up? He has to knock all the sets down to get the big prize. ALL of them." He makes sure we hear the word 'all' so we know why I'm screwed out of a prize. Pretty sure when the ball hit the stack of bottles I didn't see those last bottles move at all. "So unless you can hit that middle stack and SOMEHOW hit those other two on either side, your not getting one of the big ones." He smugly tells us. _'Yeah, I knew I didn't like this guy the moment I saw him.'_ I think as I give him a critical look and grab the last ball. _'I'll show you what for you smug little—'_ I get ready to toss the last ball but a hand halts my throw.

"Hold it Marcus." Lapis stops me, making me look at her. She has a small smile on her face and for some reason, whatever it is that made her stop me I just might like it. "Let me give it a try."

"… Go for it." I toss the ball into the air where she grabs it with both hands. I step away from my throwing spot and let her step forward as she rolls the ball around between her hands.

Already I can hear some people behind me snicker at the idea that I'm letting Lapis throw instead of me. Of course the stigma is always the guy plays and wins the prize for the girl. I don't really care about that and something tells me I might like what she's about to do.

"Well I guess if you can't hack it then give the little lady a try." As the guy speaks, already I can tell he's grating on Lapis's nerves by how he talks to and about her. I can see the annoyed look on her face as he speaks until she's had enough of it before tightly gripping the ball. Her arm flexes as she pulls her arm back. The people around us have smiles on their faces from what Lapis might do and judging from the flex of the muscles in her arm, they'll be wiped from their faces.

*CRACK*

I was right because unlike me who pulled my throws, Lapis is not as subtle because she throws it full force. Now the thing is, all Gems are naturally more powerful than most humans so even though Lapis is one of the strongest Gems in terms of her hydrokinesis, she is also pretty strong physically. That much is evident as when the ball leaves her hand and hits the middle bottle stacks, a few things happen. One, some of the bottles in the stack completely shatter and send pieces flying all over the place. Two, the ball travels unhindered through the back of the stand, a small thin wall of plywood and the cloth of the tent. And finally three, two bottles on the bottom sides of the middle stack fly out to the sides and impact the last standing bottles on the sides from the previous stacks I knocked down. I was right in them being glued because some paint chipping tears off as they fall but I focus more on the fact that we won.

Not a single bottle is left standing on the stand. I wish I had a camera to capture all the stunned and mouth-agape faces from everyone here, including the worker. _'I should really get a replacement for my phone soon.'_ Hoping for a picture aside, Lapis stands back to her full height with a smile as well as me, except I cross my arms while they continue to stare at the carnage. Slowly the worker turns back to us where we continue to smile. "I believe… we won. Prize please."

* * *

"I think Steven is going to love it."

"You think?" I ask her as I walk while carrying the giant stuffed Lion toy in my arms. There really wasn't anything that either of us would have preferred but she had the idea of possibly getting something for Steven as thanks for inviting us. As soon as our eyes fell on the lion to, we knew it had to be.

"I know so. He still has that pink one as a pet right?" I nod at her question as we make our way back to my car.

"He does. This one may not be pink but I think he'll have fun in comparing his lion and this one together."

"He will." She opens her passenger side door and lets me slip the toy in the backseat before we both sit in and I start the car. "So, where to now?"

"You know, I'm not sure. I guess we can just drive around for a bit and see what gets our interest."

"That sounds nice." She's onboard with it so I pull out of the parking lot and start driving.

As usual like before, we go ahead and start looking for anything that may catch our attention as we move about. The city itself, even though its slowly delving into the night, is still packed with people going about and having fun or doing whatever they want to do at this time. Cars drive around and some people still walk the streets. It's an interesting sight and feeling to see all these people considering we have nothing like this back in Beach City. The town is small with not a whole lot to do so of course you wouldn't see a ton of people walking around but it's still a preferable state for me to be in. Afterall, pretty I wouldn't have been able to conduct my house building and underground construction in the middle of the city, even close to it for that matter.

"So, back when you first left Earth when Steven and I freed you, how was it flying back to Homeworld?" I decide to make some small talk while we slowly drive around. This perks her up a little as she glances to me before staring out the windows again.

"It was… boring to be honest. It took me awhile to get there but the entire flight was sooo boring. Just complete and utter emptiness in space as I just coasted through the galaxy trying to remember exactly where it was." She idly recalls how it was for her trip. As she states, it was pretty boring. "All in all, yeah I'd say it was pretty boring." I nod along at her words. "Except for the blackhole."

"EXCUSE ME?!"

*HOOOONK*

"FUCK!" In my surprise at hearing that little part from her, I almost swerve into oncoming traffic. The loud honking quickly snaps me out of it and I swerve back into my own lane. Lapis and I breathe a little heavily at the near collision we almost went through once I've corrected us again. After a few seconds of his just breathing, we relax and I clarify my loud question earlier into a clearer cut one. "Soooooo… a blackhole?"

"Yeah… yeah a blackhole. I was drifting for so long and so far completely bored that I almost drifted a little too close to a swirling blackhole. The amount of gravity force that that thing was pulling on me at first was subtle at the edge but I hadn't snapped out of it in time, I would have been sucked in completely." She finishes recounting what happened.

All the while I am still amazed that she went through that in the first place, as well as I am hearing from a firsthand account of there being actual blackhole out there. _'Crazy.'_ "Well, I should very glad you didn't get sucked into a blackhole and most likely lost forever. If you did, then you never would have made it to Homeworld. You never would have sent that message and warned us." As I talk, I start to feel more and more depressed about what that might have meant. "You… never would have came back. We never… I… never would have found out. All you would have done was… disappear. No trace… nooo… answer." Now I am incredibly depressed now at the idea that she was so close to disappearing and I would never have known at all. It would have been just like with my mom. For so long I would never have any answers and that… that was horrible.

My body slumps in my seat as my thoughts continue to drift around. "Hey. What about that?" Lapis knocks me from my stewing thoughts and points to something coming up on our left as she points across my field of vision. Looking towards where she's pointing, what we see is an open arcade game place with a bustle of people inside having fun and playing games.

Unfortunately, I'm still depressed from before so I'm not really enthused for it as I should be. "I guess that can work." That doesn't mean I'm not opposed to it.

* * *

Lapis stares at Marcus with a slightly worried look. After hearing what almost happened to her, his thoughts really turned against him into thinking about all sorts of things that could have gone wrong and would have resulted in after. Even as he parks nearby does he still look down and she continues to worry for him.

' _This was supposed to be a fun time. Now its gone… bad.'_ She thinks as he shuts his car off and begins getting out. Just before she gets out though, she glances in the back and sees the toy they won back at the carnival. She lightly clenchs her hands before stepping out and quickly moving next to Marcus, a small smile on her face.

As usual with an arcade place, its packed with plenty of people from both small kids to teenagers and young adults, as well as parents to those kids. Various games litter the place for enjoyments for pretty much everyone here of all types. There is a small lane of skeeball stations to play, some different types of claw machines to try and win prizes, basketball throws, but most of all there are a bunch of arcade games to play that seem the most fun. Old classics such as a few of Time Crisis games are there, the sniper game Silent Scope, Far Cry, some army shooter ones, Jurassic Park, and finally what has to be the most popular is the House of the Dead shooters, with gun controllers and all. Already the place is pretty nice looking with the different bright lights all over the place offering some fascinating lighting for the players, as well as keeping it low enough so there's no glare for the players playing. Music also plays but subtly so as not to drown out the actual gameplay and dialogue of the games.

In fact, what also makes the place pretty cool is when Marcus and Lapis were walking in, right in front of the store above the entrance was a giant several feet wide and tall TV screen that showcased some of the gameplay currently going on in the arcade. Sort of as a highlight reel for those people playing and those that start to do exceptionally well.

Being in the atmosphere of games, Marcus starts to feel a little better but still down. "C'mon, let's go." Lapis won't have that though as she grabs his arm and pulls him in. He yelps lightly in surprise at the sudden pull but does not oppose it.

What happens next is the two of them going from different game to game and have fun playing them as best they can. From trying to get prizes from the claw machines, and failing, to taking out enemies in the games they play. They have fun as they play, even when they go to play a couple rounds of skeeball. Of course, Marcus had to explain to Lapis how to properly play it when he first said she needed to get the balls in the higher numbered holes. Although, he was pretty impressed when she threw some of the balls straight into the holes and nailed them. Still they were watched by the owner and workers so they immediately went to playing it properly, by rolling them. It took some doing but they got some decent scores. Next came to Marcus trying his hand at some of the shooting games and feeling excitement in playing them. Using guns for him was always for life and death situations so to actually do it for fun now has started to lift his spirits.

Already a few people were starting to take notice of the pair even when Marcus places pinpoint and accurate shots in Silent Scope. To him it feels odd when the controller is placed on a single point on the arcade machine but manages nonetheless.

Its when they get to the original House of the Dead arcade game that things start to ramp up for the both of them. All the while when it came to the shooting games, Marcus was the one to do the work and showed his skills behind the gun controllers. As he grabs the gun and gets ready to shoot, he notices Lapis standing nearby just watching with a smile. "Hey Lapis, why don't you play with me?"

"What?" She replies a little surprised at the offer.

"Yeah. All you've been mostly doing is watching me play this. This one offers two players to play at once." He gestures to the second gun controller in its housing. "Why don't you take this ride with me?" He offers her again.

She stares at him for a moment before uneasily reaching for the gun. "Oh… o-okay." She takes the controller and simply stands straight up while holding it towards the screen with only one hand.

"Not like that. Here." Marcus places his controller down and reaches close to Lapis. While she continues to hold weapon controller in hand, he proceeds to move up close to her and carefully maneuvering her into place. "Here. You're going to want to move your arms like this… good. Now position your legs and feet like so. Try not to lock up your joints." Carefully Marcus places his hands over her, moving her arms and legs into the proper position of shooting. All the while he doesn't see the blush that seems to be forming on her face at him being so close and moving her around. Soon he finishes and steps back before looking at her and finding her in the stance but still looks tense. Remembering something he was told, he moves up close to her and places his hand on her shoulder. "The others told me what you did to knock me back into my senses." Her eyes widen as she turns to him. He doesn't show any hate or malice towards what she did, instead he only has kindness and a smile to give her. "You've learned… but now its time to refine it…" He steps back and grabs his controller before holding it up. "One step at a time." He gets into his own stance towards the screen before glancing towards her with the still present smile. "Shall we?"

She stares at him for a few more moments again before getting a firm smile on her face and nods before resuming her stance. "Let's."

They both get ready to go on the arcade games journey. Lapis adopts the Weaver Stance, a common enough stance used by the majority of police forces, while Marcus adopts the Center Axis Relock (CAR) Stance. His stance is a little more advanced and holds his weapon closer to his body so he can have better control of the weapon and slightly quicker reaction of movement to change targets.

After putting in the necessary amount of coins, they both hit start and watch the cinematic play out before they play. The game takes Marcus back plenty as his depression from before is all but gone and now replaced with enjoyment as both he and Lapis show the game who's boss. As they continue to shoot, the zombies barely have any time to get close to the two of them as they put round after virtual round into the oncoming hoard of different zombie types. From the standard ones that are reanimated humans, to the green water moss monsters, bats, slugs and so on. Already as they pass the first boss, the Chariot, are they starting to get an audience as people watch them accumulate a large amount of health pickups from either hidden spots on the levels or saving the hostages, as well as taking almost no hits.

Even outside the arcade whoever controls the TV screen recognizes their skills as what's playing the screen now switches over to their screen of them killing zombies left and right. Some people notice and are curious at the accurate and fast shot placements the players are putting on the enemies and go in to see what's going on. Some are skeptical that's simply an AI controlled ad but when they see Marcus and Lapis playing, they see the skills in action.

That's how the night quickly rolls in for the two of them. Playing a classic awesome arcade game and going all the way through until they finally hit the last boss. As it is with them, they manage to fight and take down the final boss, the Magician, with superb results. They took some hits but all in all they were able to beat the game with amazing results. Finally they took a breather and watch as their score results show they made it to the top of the list of players. They two of them smile at the accomplishment together while some people clap and compliment the two of how well they worked together. The manager even took a picture of the two to place on a wall of all the people who attained the highest scores on the different games in the arcade. After having their picture hung, they left the arcade somewhat beat but overall happy and ecstatic at the experience.

"That was amazing!" Lapis happily states as they walk back to his car, doing a little twirl as they walk.

"Oh yeah. It definitely was." Marcus agrees wholeheartedly with a grin and gently rolling his neck, a couple pops hear and there but overall it was an enjoyable experience for sure. Soon they make it into his car and relax in the seats. "Feels good to shoot a gun and not have to worry about taking any lives… or the recoil for that matter."

"True. They weren't real guns but it was still a nice game to play shooting those… zombies, right?" She asks him. He nods as he starts his car up.

"Yep. An oldie but a goldie. At least in my opinion." He hits the car in reverse and they drive back onto the main road. "Well, now what? You up for more or shall we head back to the hotel?" He asks her.

Lapis takes a moment to think until she softly shakes her head and rubs her neck before reclining her seat a little. "I think we should head back. I think I pretty much had enough fun for the day." She finishes saying and proceeds to lean back in her reclined seat and stretches. She lets out a deep breath of a sigh and moves back up to sitting and looks up the side window. Marcus may or may not have lingered his eyes on her a bit more than necessary but even so he still agrees with her.

"Yeah, your right. I'm pretty beat too. Let's head back and see how the others are doing." Remembering roughly where they were staying at, Marcus changes streets and casually begins driving the two of them back to their fancy hotel.

* * *

Marcus pulls up into the parking lot of the hotel and gets out before quickly going over to the other side and opening up the passenger door for Lapis. She thanks him as he holds out his hand for her to take and help her out. Afterwards, he walks her inside to head up to their room.

 _[?] "Why don't you talk to each other?"_

They stop at the entrance as the place seems to quiet down and only a single voice is heard singing.

 _[Steven] "Why don't you talk to each other?  
Just give it a try."_

A voice they both know and would do nearly anything to protect. Steven sits at a piano, playing it beautifully as the lights begin to dim.

" _Why don't you talk about what happened?  
I know you're trying to avoid it,  
but I don't know why.  
You might not believe it."_

The lights begin to dim, focusing on Steven.

" _You might not believe it,  
but you got a lot in common.  
You really do."_

Some spotlights begin focusing on two people they are surprised at seeing this close together, even starting to cry.

" _You both love me,  
and I love both of you." _

Greg and Pearl come together, and speak. "Look, if I were you, I'd hate me too."

"I don't hate you."

"But I knew how you felt about Rose, and I stayed anyway."

"That wasn't the problem."

"Then, what was?"

"She fell in love with you."

"Well, you know Rose."

They share a short laugh together. "She always did what she wanted." They both say at the same time.

All the while, Lapis and Marcus stand off to the side, staring at the display before them. The sheer emotion of it all making Marcus smile and a sense of relief that's being lifted off of everyone in the group.

 _[Steven] "I know you both need it."_

Things pick up for the both of them as Steven picks up his singing, where Pearl offers a hand to Greg and he takes. Next the two begins to go into a slow dance together.

" _I know that you both need it.  
Someone who knows what you're going through.  
And you might now believe it.  
You might not believe it,  
but you got a lot in common.  
You really do.  
You both love me,  
and I love both of you." _

Their slow dancing delves into the both of them twirling each other around one-handed.

" _You both love me,  
and I love both…  
of you." _

Finishing it off with Pearl dipping Greg smoothly, the both of them staring into each other's eyes and offering smiles in return.

Whatever awkward reasons they had between the two of them… its gone now.

Cheers go out about the whole place. Some people and the staff of the place cheer on at the performance they just witnessed. While Lapis stays and lightly claps, Marcus walk over to them. "Great work. You two. Nice to see some progress between the two of you."

As soon as he speaks, they all look at him in surprise. "Marcus!" All three of them call out his name in surprise.

"Hug!" Steven jogs up and hugs him.

"Hey bro. You did good back there. When'd you learn to play the piano?" He asks the kid as he pats his head.

"Marcus!" Greg walks up, pushing his question away and patting his shoulder instead. "Where have you been? We haven't seen you since you got here?" He asks the kid but he simply shrugs his shoulders.

"Eh. Instead of staying here, I wanted to show Lapis and myself the city and see what we could do to have fun."

"How did that go?" Pearl asks. Off topic of the question, he can't help but notice how she cuts the look of wearing a suit nicely, for a gem that doesn't really like to wear human or material clothing.

"Le bill." Before Marcus can answer though, the receptionist of the hotel runs over and comes between them. He shoves a covered platter in hand to Greg before uncovering it and revealing a bill to the group.

Their attention focused on that, they watch as Greg grabs it. "Ugh." He uneasily groans as he looks at the bill.

Marcus looks at the bill in complete surprise. His eyes almost bulging out of his head. "You spent how much?!" He asks in surprise as he takes the paper from Gregs hands and watches as it unfolds several times. His breathing becomes just a little more labored as he looks at the numbers. "How-how-how did you spend this much in-?!" Marcus begins to question before he looks at the time and realize he has no idea how long they were out. "HEY LAPIS! How long were we out?!" He calls out to her but he doesn't get an immediate answer as she looks down. He stares at her before giving the bill back to Greg without looking at him. "Here." He goes off to her without any other word. While everyone is in high spirits from the performance, Marcus worriedly walks up to a saddened and almost… scared? "Lapis?"

"Huh? Oh, hey Marcus." Her outlook turns around and she seems to perk up when she sees him.

That doesn't stop him however from asking her. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes. Everything is alright. Why wouldn't they be?" She tries to sort of deflect his question with another right after but to Marcus it seems… forced.

"Lapiiiss." He draws her name out a little to show he knows she's not telling him everything. She tries to keep the smile a little more but his staring breaks her, making her let out a breath of air and dropping the fake smile.

"Ohhh, I'm sorry I just… Greg and… Pearl." She says theirs names as she looks at them from a distance.

Marcus looks towards the others before back to her. "What about them?"

"Their… dancing. For a second, I thought they were… going to fuse when I saw them dancing and it just… brought up… bad memories."

' _Bad memories? Why would- Oh, right.'_ Marcus begins to think why but suddenly remembers what it was that has her on really bad terms with fusing. _'Jasper.'_ Just thinking of the Quartz soldiers makes his mood sour and clench his fists tightly but as he sees the slightly depressed look on her face, he realizes it won't matter to get mad now and opts to focus on Lapis now. Some thoughts begin to go through his head on what he should do but one manages to make itself known, and hopefully won't backfire.

He turns around and quickly heads over to the others. Lapis watches from a distance as he jogs over to them quickly and stops them from speaking before he himself speaks. He begins whispering into their ears, first to Steven, then Greg and Pearl and while the latter two are a little surprised, Steven is no less happy to do what he's told and runs off. Seeing Steven go, Pearl and Greg nod before getting into position too.

Next, much to Lapis's surprise, the entire places lights begin to shut off, similar to how it was when Greg and Pearl were dancing. A spotlight shines in the middle of the room with no one there… yet.

"Lapis." She jolts a little as Marcus appears next to her. She's a little surprised at his sudden appearance but as the music begins to play, she calms down a little and he holds out his hand to her. "Will… you grant me the honor… of a dance?" He asks of her.

A look of panic crosses her face as she hears what he asks. "Da-dance?! No! Marcus, I can't! I can't I… I don't want to fuse I—" She's almost on the verge of breaking down until a hand places itself on the side of her cheek. She looks up, tears threatening to break from the corners of her eyes to see the comforting look he is giving her.

"Not fusing. Just dancing. Dancing leads to fusion… but that's not want I want right now." He steps back and extends his hand as an offer again to her. "All I want… is a simple dance. No fusing, nothing that you hate. Please?" He asks of her. She looks conflicted for a second as she considers what he is saying.

During her time with Jasper, as Malachite, any semblance of a pleasurable experience with fusion has basically been and utterly destroyed because of Jasper. Now, any moment, person or time that might remotely involve fusion has the high probability of bringing up bad memories of her time as Malachite. And now here's someone asking her to do something that has been known by Gem kind for thousands and thousands of years, to do something that precludes to one of her biggest fears as of now.

Regardless, she slowly, carefully, and shakingly places her hand into his… because if anyone else were to ask her to do this, she'd say no. He… is one of two of that exception.

He smiles as he feels her hand slowly slide into his. He gently grabs it and begins leading her to the spotlight. "One step at a time, Lapis. One step…" They both become engulfed in the light and slowly come together and both take the others remaining hand. "At a time."

They both smile at each other, and begin a slow dance.

Steven is at the piano, playing the tune of his song from before without singing. Just letting the flow of his musical notes give way to the moment that these two are sharing. After everything he knows they've been through, this moment together, only together, is something they've needed for a long.

Pearl and Greg are nearby, controlling the lights of the room to better improve the atmosphere in which the two are dancing to. Greg keeps the center light focused on the pair while Pearl controls the multiple colored lights.

War. Fighting. Hurt. Isolation. Anger. Sadness. All of these are moments, situations and emotions that both Marcus and Lapis have endured. Some more than others, but still hurts just as much. As they slowly move about, hands gripping each other as the music continues to play, neither one feels the pull and want of a fusion common with Gem kind but not now. Not when one of them is hurting and the other one doesn't want to hurt. Step, and step, and step they continue to repeat in a slow circle with the center spotlight following as they move as one. The world ebbs away around them, focusing on their partner as nothing else matters to them. Not in this moment, just like before when they were hanging out in the city. They didn't worry about anything else or all the problems they had. All they wanted was to have fun and that's exactly what they're doing right now.

Having fun. Relaxing. Something that has sorely been needed for them.

The music picks up in crescendo where it begins to hit its final notes. Their moving and waltzing with each other turns into a slow one until finally, Marcus twirls her around once before finishing their dance with a dipping Lapis low to the ground and pulling her up into him just as the last note plays out.

Everything begins to quiet down as all noise stops, besides the slow rhythmic breathing of the dancers involved. Holding each other for a bit, they pull away and take a good long look at each other before they smile.

The lights turn on and cheers go about the whole place. Pearl claps while Greg and Steven whistle and howler at the dance performance they saw. Marcus and Lapis pay no mind to everyone around them and simply bask in the afterglow of their performance. The ease in which they moved and complimented each other has left them a little winded, especially after the days events they went through, but are nonetheless satisfied with how everything went down. "How are you feeling?" He asks her.

"It was… nice. Very nice. Thank you… for this. I… I think I needed this." She sincerely tells him. Before the idea of dancing or pertaining to fusion freaked her out so much but now, having experienced the dancing without the fusion lead up, a relaxing feeling has stemmed its way into her and taken root.

"I'm glad. I'm glad to have done this for you. I think I needed it too."

"I feel the same way."

"…"

"…"

Neither one of them says anything more. They continue to stare at one another, smiles on their faces. The world is still silent for the two of them as they lean in close to each other. At the same time, their heads slowly lean into one another, closer… and closer until—

Marcus's eyes widen. He pulls her close with his left arm and ducks as a loud noise goes off. He pulls her around while at the same time, he reaches into his jacket, pulls out his Beretta, aims behind where she was and fires.

*Bang… bang… bang*

* * *

 **Heehhhhhhh… no rest for the wicked, huh? More trouble has hit Marcus as usual. We'll see what happens later in the next chapter. As for the rest of the chapter, honestly folks I wanted to include some type of actual music source you all could look and listen to as you all read the dancing portion, but I couldn't really come up with something. I was thinking of maybe some type of symphony music from Beethoven I think it was but for the life of me I couldn't find the proper type. I know what it is, but I never actually heard the name. I feel bad but nonetheless I hope you all liked the moment at least. I figured Steven showing off his amazing piano skills again would still be a nice pace for the two of them.**

 **Of course it all went to hell right after but it's the sentiment that'll be with them, should they survive. And now its Lapis that's being drawn into his fighting. Not a good outcome. Any who, I may have drawn out in writing this more than what was necessary but just a lot of things have kind of ate up my time or my attention. Nothing big mind you, just small recreational things just got my interest you know. The big thing that I've been keeping track of was the multiple playthroughs that have gone into the game Detroit: Become Human. I have to admit, when I first saw it unveiled at E3 with Connors trailer, I was hyped for it and super excited to play it. Their was just one problem though when it came time for launch.**

 **Playstation only. I don't have a Playstation 4 in which to play it so my plans to play it were kind of shut down. That being said, I still wanted to see how it went so I spent several days in a row watching multiple people play through the game and see the different outcomes and effects that came from all the choices. And after that I looked for videos showcasing specific events and what you needed to do in order to attain them. All in all, the game has had so many moments where it completely hits you in the feels from the point of views from Connor, Kara, and Markus. Not to mention the end where the android you meet at the main menu engages YOU the player, that was awesome too. All in all, I really wish I could have played the game and if at some point in the future I get a Playstation to play it, I'll probably get it regardless of the spoilers I gave myself. I guess I've just been feeling different because of the different emotional outcomes that could happen in the game, from them being happy endings to gut-wrenching depressing ones. That's mostly what had my attention these last couple of weeks so hopefully I can actually get to work more on my writing.**

 **Reviews:**

 **MADMatt6:** Definitely. I was freaking out when I saw the change but at the same time it does kind of make sense. As inspiring as it is for a common soldier to rise up with incredible, the sheer powers she had didn't seem to fit from her origin. Then again, there are some gems who've done more than what they were originally designed to do. Peridot's metal powers for one. Regardless, surprising as it was, I'm still going to do what I can to integrate it into my story.

 **ChimaTigon:** Oh really? And who did you have in mind?

 **Seruis:** Of course he wants to build him a mansion. Greg's been living in his van for too long and so all he wants is to give him the comfortable place he deserves to live in. Some things somewhat positive are starting to go for Net Neutrality so here's hoping things will be alright in the end. Rose Quartz being Pink Diamond was a shock and I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I am going to integrate it but I think I'll manage… possibly.

 **Patriota1993:** Yeah not big on it for me either. Mostly something easy before things start to get more… hectic.

 **xXSpadeds231Xx:** Not everything can be serious. Some lighthearted moments here and there can be needed to ease up. Hopefully things will continue to be alright in the coming days.

 **Cf96:** Thank you.

 **Soulfire47:** Yeah, at the beginning I used the injury angle as an excuse to skip some episodes that I couldn't come up with stuff for or just didn't have as much of an impact for Marcus before scrapping it just opting to skip whatever anyway, without injuring him.

1) You know, I never saw it like that. In a way your probably right in it being considered his own version of being gem-poofed.

2) He may start to piece some things together but besides the hands going over the mouth, their really isn't anything else that speaks up about her forced silence. He does know the concept from other certain anime, those have clear indicators while Pearl's does not. He will see it as odd but without physical evidence or past experiences, he can't make any definite claims. Nonetheless, he's going to be right next to Steven when he finds out.

3) Oh, she will find out. He will show both her and Lapis eventually but I'm debating between a couple points. The cut off point would basically be around the episode 'Alone at Sea' but I'm thinking of revealing his base and what he has at an earlier point. Nothing definite but just to make it established, it's around that episodes time that he will reveal his gear, and where he got it.

 **NJred2000:** That's not a bad idea for an omake. Don't know when or if I'd do it but its something to think about.

 **Guest:** Thanks. Glad you liked it. And that is so true. Wow I never thought of that. I really need to keep an eye out and a more open mind to thinking about it. Thank you for helping me figure out this question. That's a load off my mind.

 **NJred2000:** I've never really wanted to directly take anything from other animes, although I will say the Vindicator was kind of a mix-mash of the mobile suits from Gundam and the mechs from Code Geass. Still, we'll see how things play out.

 **Thank you all for your questions and support for my work. Hopefully in the coming days things will be alright and I can continue to write more without hinderance. Well wishes all around that everything stays alright and good for everyone. Thank you everyone. Fave, follow, review, whatever it is you want to do, but most of all have fun reading and have a great day.**


	68. 66 The Chase

"DAMNIT!" I yell as a bullet nearly takes my head from behind. I turn the wheel of my car and skid around a corner but that doesn't stop my pursuers. "Son of bitch! Can't believe this is happening!" I shout out loud as I recall what the hell happened a few minutes ago.

* * *

 _A few minutes ago…_

*…Bang*

"GET DOWN!" I yell as loud as I can after I fired. The man that missed me goes down when I put the third round into his body but other guys start pulling out weapons too. People begin screaming and running all over the place as bullets fly through the air and while my opponents aren't worried about collateral damage to civilians, I am. I have to time my shots carefully for the fleeing hotel staff and civilians but I still manage to put down gunman after gunman. Lapis and I move to the far side of the ball room where Pearl has already overturned several tables as makeshift cover. "Pearl!" I shout her name as Lapis rounds the cover. She takes a quick look to me as I pull out my second Beretta and toss it to her. She catches it easily enough and returns fire as I dive over the cover and roll behind it just as a flurry of bullets narrowly avoid me.

"Dad! What's happening?!"

"Stay down son!" Greg tells his son as he covers him with the entirety of his body behind our cover. As soon as I lay myself against our cover does Greg notice me. "Marcus! What's going on?! Who are these people?!" Greg frantically and scared beyond belief asks me, barely lifting his head to ask me and instead favoring to cover his son as much as possible.

"I don't know!" I reply before quickly peaking over and just as fast bringing my head back down when some bullets nearly hit me. It was quick but it was enough for me to see that all the civilians are gone and its just us and the gunmen on opposite sides of the room. "I can hazard a guess but I'm not sure!" I reply to him before I aim and blind-fire over my cover. I counted over a dozen guys with small arms firing on us so I can barely aim out of cover to accurately place shots on them.

"The Iron Kings?!" Pearl throws out the suggestion before quickly leaning over and putting only one shot downrange but that's about it before going down. The cry of pain is evident that she hit one of them.

"Best guess!" A quick lull in the fire allows me to pop out and send several rounds downrange. Hitting a few but not killing.

"I thought you took care of them?!" Greg shockingly and loudly asks. After all it was before that I had told him and everyone else that they wouldn't be bothering us anymore. If this is them, then I wasn't as effective as I thought.

"I thought so too! God damnit why here now?!" I yell loudly and angrily to no one in particular. Just beyond pissed right now.

"Magazine!" Pearl calls out.

"Here!" I quickly toss her a spare, allowing her to expertly reload it while I blind-fire some more before having to reload myself. As I do, I hear some cars screeching outside and glancing to the enemy's side windows, I see more guys moving and joining them. "Damn!" I yell out as more bullets fly at us. While I'm still in cover, I take a quick look at the others. Steven and Greg are holding each other tightly, eyes closed with Greg covering his son as much as possible, Pearl is trying to get a bead on more of them but can't seem to, a look of concentration and frustration etched into her face, while Lapis looks around frantically, unsure of what to do and completely confused about the whole thing. _'This is not good.'_ The unease in my thoughts of our current situation is even more evident as I do a quick check of my ammo count, including the ones in out guns. _'Not enough. Not enough.'_ "We can't stay here!" I tell the others.

"Obviously!" Greg crossly states from his huddled position.

"But what's the plan?!" Lapis asks over all the noise.

Several thoughts go through my head as I try to come up with some kind of plan to get us out of here safely. I look around for anything that could possibly be used as a shield for or to be used to safely transport us back to our rides. "Wait, shield?" The thought sticks and I look down at my brother. "Steven!"

"Yes?" Steven replies in a slightly muffled tone from under his dad.

"I need your shield man!"

"Nya. Okay!" He pokes his head and arms out from his dads embrace and holds his arm out to me. It takes a second for him to concentrate, what with the bullets flying and all, but eventually his shield appears between us.

"Thanks!" I thank him and quickly grab it before holding it in my left arm. The benefit to this is the fact that his shield is semi-transparent so as I carefully poke myself up and out of cover with his shield in front, I'm able to see just what our opposition is. I see over a dozen guys on the other side shooting at us with more behind the glass and getting ready enter once they've broken it down. I have absolutely not enough ammo on me in order to take them from a distance and the sheer volley of their bullets and how many of them there are shows none of us can move in close to engage them. Especially not with Steven and Greg here. They're top priority. "Alright here's the plan!" I crouch back down and the others listen in. "Steven! When I give the word, create a bubble around yourself and your dad! Pearl, Lapis! When they do, put the bubble between you two and the gunfire! We're going to roll the bubble to the entrance and get to vehicles and get the hell out of here! Got it?!" I quickly do what I can to relay the plan to them of what needs to be done. I've seen how powerful Steven's bubble can hold out under duress and I'm pretty sure some bullets will not be enough to pierce it. All of them nod at the plan and while Pearl and I quickly put down a burst of fire against them, the others get in position. When we've hit them enough, I turn back to them. "Alright! Steven do it!"

"Go it!" He replies and soon after, the large pink bubble appears right over himself and Greg. Much to my relief, the bullets that hit it easily bounce off without any marks appearing on the construct at all. "Perfect! Get behind them!" I order Lapis and Pearl to do and they do it without question. Now that they have mobile cover between them and the oncoming fire, I ready myself with my shield. "On my mark, run and roll!" I hold up my fingers for the countdown. "Three… two…" My fists tighten on my gear and everyone gets ready to bolt. "ONE!"

Pulling my shield up, I take the brunt of the shots first before Steven and Greg roll the bubble straight towards the main exit with Pearl and Lapis behind them as cover. The occupants inside flinch as the bullets impact the bubble but focus on rolling when they see nothing is getting in. I follow behind them as Pearl and I expend as much ammo as we can against our assailants as we move. Their rounds ping off the shields and I move fast enough where they can't accurately place shots on the rest of my exposed body. Soon enough, we manage to make it to the main double doors where Pearl grabs one door and slams it closed. As soon as I pass through the other open one, we fire a few more rounds into the room before closing it and jamming the shield where the handles are, locking the doors together. "That won't hold them long." I quickly inform them before Steven drops the bubble and we run to our vehicles. "Everyone get in the van and get back home ASAP! Don't stop for anything." I quickly tell them as I begin getting into my car.

"Wait, Marcus! What about you?" Steven asks worried at what I am implying.

"They want me Steven! I just know it. I'll lead them away and catch up with you later!" I tell him my plan. Their would be no other reason for these people to attack than to get to me since the Crystal Gems aren't exactly widely known.

"But—"

"Go! Now!" I shout back and turn my car on, making the engine rev up loudly.

Steven continues to look worriedly at me until Pearl runs out and grabs him. "Steven, let's go!" He protests a little but he and Pearl get in the back while Greg starts up his van.

Seeing them ready to go, I sigh mentally prepare myself for what's going to happen. _'Okay. This is going to get hairy. But as long as I keep cool then I should be able to—'_ My thoughts are broken as the passenger side door opens up, much to my confusion. I'm even more confused as Lapis steps in and sits next to me. "Wha- Lapis?! What are you doing here?! I told you to go with them!" I lightly yell to her, more than a little ticked off at her disregard of my orders.

"I'm going with you. You can't take them on alone. Not when your underpowered now. I want to help." She sincerely tells me and firm in her want to help.

While I can appreciate her willingness to help me, this makes things more complicated as I now have to worry about her too. "Wha- No! I can do this and survive better on my own! You need to get back into Gregs van and—" Before I can finish, I glance into the rear-view mirror to spot the guys coming around the corner and spotting us. At the same time, Gregs van peels off. "Damnit!" I curse before hitting the gas, making my tires screech and we fly forward onto the main road.

* * *

So now here I am, speeding off to escape my enemies with Lapis in tow and clearly involved. Not really something I wanted to happen but nothing I can do about it now.

"Alright fine. You're here. You do exactly what I say understand me?!" I ask of her in as serious a tone as I can muster. This was not the plan at all but its too late for me to change it. I especially didn't want her to be involved with this because this would be her first time engaging human enemies and this is something that I was hoping to avoid.

"I understand." She nods, fully willing to follow my lead. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just… keep an eye out while I think." I say as I continue to drive us around. I'm putting as much distance between us and the hotel as I can while also trying not to arouse suspicion. Already I can hear a bunch of police sirens head towards the hotel. "Keep cool. Try not to let them notice us." I quickly tell her as the police come speeding by us. We both lean down in our seats until they pass and relax when they do.

Lapis looks back as we continue to coast through the streets. "I think we're in the clear." She states with a smile, allowing me some relief.

"Okay. Still keep an eye out." I remind her as I think. _'Okay. If anything, hopefully the cops will find them and take them but there were a lot of them from what I remember. We need to be careful in case—'_

"Look out!" She suddenly yells out. Followed by her warning is a flurry of bullets that impact my side of the car. Normally a regular bullet like a 9mm would be able to pass through the frames of most cars but thankfully, I've heavily modified my car after all the abuse its taken so besides a couple cracks in the window, we're still alright. That still doesn't detract from the both of us flinching and ducking in our seats as I slam the pedal all the way down. A black car comes speeding out from a side street with someone leaning out the window and firing on us. Several more cars come speeding out from other side streets and promptly join in chasing us.

"I knew we weren't out of it yet." I angrily state before I begin focusing on my driving and making sure we don't crash. A quick check in the mirror shows we are dealing with well over a dozen cars and trucks following us and filled to the brim with guys trying to shoot us dead. While I pass by cars with relative ease, they sometimes impact and crash into them but they are tougher than most so those civilian cars are tossed into the side walk. It's still night out so while there are some people still walking, its not near as much as in the day. "They just never god damn quit." I growl out before with a grunt I turn us around a corner and head down another road.

"Who are they? Why are they attacking us?" Lapis asks as she looks back at our pursuers.

"I have enemies on both species Lapis. Gems, AND humans!" I answer with another street turn. "And I was hoping I was done with them but apparently not." I growl out as one of the more faster cars of their attack squad pulls up to my side and guys from both the passenger side front seat and backseat aim SMG's right at me. "Fuck!" I yell and reach above me. Just as I do, they open fire and the bullet proof glass I have equipped on my car immediately starts to splinter and crack from two rapid firing SMG's on its surface especially in close proximity. Thankfully I have a backup plan for protection all around to protect the people inside and that's a considerably tough piece of metal that I slide down before the window breaks. As soon as it goes down, I can hear my window break and the bullets impacting the metal. It holds true and besides the loud ricochets against the metal, nothing breaks through. "Damn that was close." I groan and pull out my pistol. I quickly reload it now that I have some spare magazines in my car before I go back to driving when I place my pistol to my side. Before I try to return fire, to the side I spot another car coming up on Lapis's side with the driver and backseat passenger pulling out handguns. "Lapis!"

She looks to the side and her eyes widen when she sees them aiming at us. Quickly following my example, she grabs her side of the shutter and brings it down for protection. "Marcus this is getting bad. They're has to be something I can do." She offers her and help and to be honest it's something I need to do. Right now we're simply running from them and I don't know how effective I'll be in shooting and driving with one hand each, and certainly not backwards.

With a loud groan, I give in. "Alright alright. In the glove compartment, theirs a gun in there. Take it and shoot the guys on your side." I instruct her with a wave to the compartment in front of her. She points at it for emphasis and I nod. She opens it up and pulls out a Skorpion SMG before she quickly looks it over. "That is a Skorpion vz. 61. It has full-auto capability and you should have plenty of ammo in there to completely riddle these cars with bullets. Becareful when firing it. Submachine guns like that tend to go all over the place when firing on full—" Before I can finish speaking, she pushes up her metal cover to reveal the enemy car and the guys reloading. They look up as they see her and she's the last thing they see before she aims her weapon one-handed and sprays the entire inside of the car, even swinging left and right a little to get at the front and backseats. Her shots don't even go off target as she keeps the weapon leveled and completely perforates them with an entire magazine. The driver slumps forward dead before his car drifts to the side and crashes into a parked car. "…Auto." Finally I manage to finish what I was saying.

"Like that?" She asks me, smile on her face and a smoking gun her hand.

"…Y-yeah. Just like that." I stammer out in saying just a little. _'Holy crap I have never been so turned on in my life than right now.'_ My throat suddenly feels dry. Before I can continue to… linger on my feelings, more shots go off against my cover, reminding me of our other threats. "Crap." I groan and not wanting to keep going down a straight line, I turn into anther right street. Because of how many there are after us, some of them end up crashing into each other as they take the tight turn but most continue to pursue us. Some of them even going down other side streets. I pull up my cover and look in the rearview to see them gaining and the car from before coming up to shoot. "Not this time." As soon as they get close, I ram their car in the side before they can fire. The guy in the passenger seat drops his Uzi right into my lap from the ram so I pick it up and fire at them without even looking. Already I can hear some of them cry out from being shot but I quickly shift my aim to their tire. Once the last bullet runs out, I drop the weapon out the window and gun it before the driver loses control.

The car swerves to the left and the left corner of their car completely crumples as it impacts into a light pole. The backend goes high into the air before it tips upside down and crashes into the middle of the road. One car crashes into it and is knocked out but a big burly truck completely tears through and pushes them out of the way, allowing the rest to pass after us. "That's not good." Lapis comments and I can't help but agree.

"No kidding. Lean out a little and shoot them as much as you can. Try to keep them from getting close. Either aim for the driver or the tires." I quickly instruct her to do.

"Got it." She finishes reloading her weapon and starts firing back at them. She twists herself around a little so only her head and left arm are out and firing at the enemy. The truck isn't fast enough to catch up to us but its armored up a lot more so her shots don't do much against it. The cars though aren't and she manages to either take them out of commission or forces them back behind the armored trucks as cover. "They're pulling back." She tells me as she comes back into reload.

"That's good. We need to get them off of us before we can even think to return—" A flurry of bullets impact the back of my car, making us flinch a little. It seems now they're starting to wise up so instead of taking us out directly, their opting to tear my car apart with continued fire. Good thing I armored it then or things would be a lot worse. "Damn. This is getting worse and worse."

"What do we do?" She asks me and tries to lean out to fire but their shots also go along the sides of my car, so she's effectively pinned from shooting back and shooting through the bullet proof glass I have in the back is not an option.

I look around for anything that we can use to our advantage until I spot an on-ramp. I smile and get ready. "Hang on!"

"What? Whoa!" Lapis yelps out as I twist the car suddenly to the side and drift into the on-ramp of the cites highway system. My car catches a little air as I make it onto the main roadway and we grunt as I land a little roughly. Albeit it would have been a lot worse if I didn't install shocks as an added measure. "They're still following us." She calls out and true to what she says, they follow us up.

"Expected." I knew they were going to follow us up.

"And more company." Other ramps up here, including those on the oncoming traffic side, have several more vehicles bring up more of our enemies to us.

"Unexpected." I groan at the sudden influx of them chasing us. Like I said before, its night so not many cars on the roads to get in our way. There are still some but pretty much everyone manages to avoid them well enough. Some of them even do manage to get out of the way when they see either the oncoming cars or the massive wave of cars speeding up from behind them.

"Do you want me to keep shooting them?"

"Not yet. Wait for them to get close and open fire. I'll try to take them out myself." I propose.

"And how are you going to do that?"

My answer comes in the form of one of the cars on the oncoming side getting ready to hit me as a break in the center barriers comes up. Staring as the car gets into position to turn, ready to ram me, another car comes up to our right and its occupants prepare themselves to fire. _'Perfect.'_ With both of these, I can't help but smile. Before Lapis can fire at the car, she has to brace herself against the dashboard just as I suddenly slam the brakes on my car. At the same time, the barrier breaks and the car swerves right into our side… right into its ally. I think I hear some yell go out but I simply watch as I gun it again as both cars crumple together with the right-most car slamming into the barrier edge of the highway, crushing it and sending it flying into the air and over the side. "Like that." I simply answer and continue driving.

"Huh, okay then." She accepts the response and we get back to surviving by our own means.

Because of the expansive highway system there is plenty of room to maneuver around but the same is said for the enemy. They keep trying to push get close enough to do some damage but are forced back by Lapis's fire. Any that try to go on the left side and hit me are taken out by me ramming them before they can prepare, or me simply shooting their tires and forcing them to crash. A couple even decide to try to ram the back of my car to push me off but they are destroyed as I suddenly turn to the side, giving them no chance to avoid the car that was coming up or the barrier. Eventually, things continue to not look up so I take the off-ramp and get back onto ground level. "Jeez, how many of them are there?!" I angrily state as they seem to be never-ending and just don't know when to quit. A round of bullets impact the back of my car, further cracking the glass in the back.

"Arh!"

"Lapis! Are you okay?" I ask her in concern as she suddenly yelps out in pain. She pulls herself back in, gripping her hand.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine. One of them almost hit me and I dropped my weapon. I'm sorry." She apologizes but I wave her off.

"Its fine. As long as your okay. Now we just need to focus on losing them."

"But how?" She asks.

' _How indeed.'_ I look around for anything that might be able to completely block them from pursing me. What makes matters worse and complicated is I think I can hear more sirens coming towards our direction and I think there are some helicopters already in the air. Even so, it's when we pass into a more slightly open area that I spot something that may work. A section of the city has been placed under construction so we see a lot of dirt ground mixed with the outlining girder structures, cranes and construction equipment. "There!" I turn anther sharp corner, drifting into construction and as usual our enemies follow me in. "Hold on tight and tell me where they are." I instruct Lapis to do and she nods. The road is a little bumpy but nothing that I can handle. I have to honk my horn a few times to make sure any workers in the area get out of the way in time and they manage to. Seeing all the hazardous stuff around, already I can tell there are going to be plenty of opportunities to take out more of our enemies.

"On your left." Lapis calls out and a car comes up next to us. After pulling my cover down, I slam my car into the other and we begin to tear into each other as both of us try to overtake the other. Of course my car is still more powerful than theirs so its no contest when at the right time I slam into them hard, forcing them to swerve off and go up a small dirt mound at a wrong angle. They twist into the air until they slam into the ground upside down.

"That ones down." I comment before I pull up my cover.

"Truck!" She loudly calls out in a slight panic. Now to our right, a truck comes barreling in and slams into us in the side. We let out loud grunts from the crash as the blow dents my cars frame but otherwise Lapis is alright. Even so as we continue to move drive forward, the sheer size of the truck manages to overtake my car in brute strength so I have no chance in pushing back against it.

' _Okay! Need a new plan.'_ A quick look around this place and I spot what I need to take this thing down. I have to time it right because its coming in fast. _'Almost… almost…'_ The truck continues to push us and start to damage my car but before it can completely cripple my car, my opportunity is here. "Now!" I shout and turn as hard as I can to the left. Just as I do, the giant swinging wrecking ball of metal comes right where I would have been before, my car passing just behind it, and crashes head on into the trucks side. No matter what type of material or armor you would have, there is nothing that could stop you from the swinging ball of metal. That much is evident as it completely crushes the driver side of the truck, bits of metal and glass flying all over the place, and sending the husk of it flying into the air where it lands and crashes against a vertical steel girder, crumpling the truck in half and most likely killing its occupants. "And finally, he's gone." I breathe in relief.

"But we still got more of them behind us." Lapis states the obvious again. "What do we do about them?"

"Hmmm." I hum in thought on what to do and thankfully I spot a big pile of large metal pipes being held together by some thick metal cables coming from up ahead. "That could work." I grab my gun and get ready. "Grab the wheel and hold it steady." I quickly order Lapis to do before I lean out my window slightly and get ready to shoot. She does what she's told and grabs the steering wheel and holds it steady for us to go forward while I focus on shooting. The cars movement and bumpy road makes my aim go all over the place but at the right time, I open fire and shoot as many bullets as I can right at where the cables are. Many of my bullets miss but the closer we get, I get more accurate until my shots cut a few of the cables, making them snap in two with a loud 'ping' sound. We pass by just as the rest of the cables snap from the weights stress on them and start tumbling out into the path. It works out perfectly as one car is crushed and buried under them and the rest are completely blocked off from a direct path to us, some crashing while others are forced to stop altogether. "Yes!" I shout happily now that we've effectively stopped.

"Awesome!" Lapis is happy too at the destruction. Not wanting to be in this place anymore, I drive off out of an exit and back onto the main road. "We did it!" She breathes in relief and I do too.

"Yeah, we did. That was way too close. We took out the bulk of them." I begin to say but looking in the rear view I see just a few more cars coming. "But we still have more on us." These ones seem better armed because some of the lead cars has guys leaning out with assault rifles. I quickly turn a corner to disrupt their aim but the new road is a straightaway and their still on us. "Crap. Lapis I'm gonna give you my pistol and you—" I'm interrupted as they light up the back of my car.

*BANG*

*CRACK*

"Damnit!" I shout as the window behind us completely breaks and shatters. "This getting bad. We need to end this now! Lapis do you see anymore around us?"

"…"

The silence is not comforting. "Lapis?" I ask as I turn to her. She seems to be sitting straight up, her body completely still as she stares forward with her mouth parted open. "Lapis what's wrong?" I ask her in concern. The way how she looks and is not responding is making me feel more worried.

"…"

"LAPIS SAY SOMETHING!"

"…"

*Zzzztt*

My breathing becomes heavy as her entire form fizzles a little. It lasts only a second but when she's normal, she looks… darker than before. Slowly, she turns to me… and I almost cry, just as she's doing. "M-M-Marcus?" The way she calls my name is more a question but it hurts even more the way she says it in a truly scared tone.

The completely white orbs that are her eyes makes my heart beat faster and harder. "L-Lapis?"

*BANG*

The image will forever be burned into my mind as I watch a bullet pass through her headrest, into her head and embed itself into the front windshield. The world slows for me as I watch her body slowly slump against the dashboard.

*Poof*

She's gone. Her form destroyed and all I find in her seat is her gem.

Her… cracked gem.

"Lapiiisss!" I yell in anger mixed with anger at what I see before me. I reach over to grab her gem.

*CRACK*

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" I yell bloody murder as my body feels like its burning up. Pain shoots through every course of my nerves and I feel like I'm dying. Pulling my arm back, I freeze up as this whole time I wasn't watching where was going.

Right into a tanker truck.

* * *

The attackers continue to open fire with their assault rifles, barely bothering to aim and just trying to put as much lead into the driver seat of the car they are chasing. Many of their bullets pass right over and crash right into the fuel tanker coming up ahead. The drivers all brake while their passengers continue to open fire. It was a smart move too because their shots puncture the shell of the tanker and fuel starts leaking out. Its just as the car is about to ride under the tanker that it happens.

It explodes.

In a massive bright light of force and fire, the tanker of fuel goes off, completely engulfing their quarries car in burning hot fire and metal. It takes a little while for the fire to die down but once it does, they watch and see nothing there to indicate their target could have survived the explosion. As a helicopter passes over, they find its high time to get out of there. The three cars immediately turn around and go in three separate directions and as far away from each other as they can, and the scene of the crime.

Their mission done.

* * *

Steven grips the metal of the van tightly as he spots the mini explosion cloud just as they are passing over a hill overlooking Empire City.

"Anyone following us?" Greg calls out from the driver seat, his vans speed having picked up and going just a little above the allotted speed limit in their section of the road.

"No Greg. Your good. You can relax now."

"Phew. Good." He sighs in relief and just slightly eases up on the gas. He's still going over but its not to the point where he'd get pulled over, just enough for him to feel comfortable in getting the hell home as soon as possible.

Despite all this, Steven continue to stare out the window. A pair of pale arms wrap around him and hold him tightly against the body from behind while they stare out the back windows. "He'll be fine."

"Do you… you think so Pearl?" Steven asks Pearl, making sure he heard her right.

She nods and places her head on top of his, a hopeful look on her face and now Steven's. "I am. He's like those insects that tend to show up a lot. Those… cockroaches?" He nods at her. "Now normally I wouldn't like to compare him to an insect but if theirs one thing that I've seen that he shares a similarity to them… it's the fact that time and time again, he will take a lot of abuse but keep getting back up." She looks at him from the left and smiles. "Besides, he has Lapis with him doesn't he? Remember how powerful she is?"

"Oh yeah." Now remembering that in this instance he's no longer alone in his fight, a feeling of hope and relief courses through him. "She almost kicked your guys butts back when she took the ocean." Steven comments at that memory.

"It was a fluke." Pearl replies with a miffed expression. Still, Steven has a smile as he now just sits back and enjoys the ride home.

* * *

Pain.

Lots of pain.

I trudge through the alleyway of with slow, uneasy steps. My body feels on fire. Actually it almost was earlier but the armored exterior saved me from the most of it. Most. Burns still line small parts of my body but that's not the worst of the pain I'm feeling and I have no idea why.

For god sakes I don't even know how I got here in the alleyway, or where my car is. Everything is starting to blur. Both my senses and my… self-sense.

What?

"Fuck." I breath out as I collapse on the ground. My right arm and knees brace me as I fall while my left arm remains tucked against my chest. Soon I fall the rest of the way onto the ground and roll over on the dirty floor until I am on my back and staring at the sides of the buildings and into the sky. _'Why does it hurt so much?'_ That's the one question I can't wrap my head around as I can't find any other injuries besides the burns, and those are still minimal at best, even with the growing cold.

Slowly, I crawl my way to the side until I touch the wall of the building. My nails scratch the concrete wall as I desperately pull myself up until I am sitting with my back to the wall. "Son of a bitch." I breathe out in frustrated anger as I try to make sense of what's what… kind of. I bring my left hand up and find myself clutching the blue gem belonging to Lapis Lazuli in my grip. She' cracked… but she's safe… I think. _'I need to fix myself up if I want to have any hope of getting out of here.'_ I close my eyes and concentrate in trying to fix myself up.

"Aaahhh!" I suddenly yell out as pain spikes through me again. "Damnit!" I angrily breathe before it subsides but the pains still there. "Damnit… why…? Why?" I keep trying to make sense but… nothing. Fucking nothing! _'Why?!'_

In my anger, I begin to notice that the pain seems to be originating more to my… to my right. Slowly, very slowly with agonizing slowness, I crane my head to my right. My eyes soon lay on my right gem.

It's cracked.

"Fuuu… uhhhh…" I collapse on my side and everything goes dark.

* * *

 **Well, that was unprecedented. All the times that Marcus has been fighting, pushing himself to fight and retaliate against all his enemies, now it seems his trump card as been all but taken from him.**

 **His gem is cracked. His lifeforce has been damaged… and he has no idea where he is while his family is driving away, expecting him to make it to them eventually. The only other person who knows where he is and can help… is stuck in her damaged gem. Things are not looking good for him at the moment.**

 **Actually, it looks like things are still not looking good in the outside world either. Tomorrow is supposed to be the date for the limits placed on the internet and to me it doesn't look like things are going to change. That's just me so I really hope I'm wrong and the internet is still going to be alright but I guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes.**

 **Not much else I can really say to you all as nothing new has happened to me but I guess I can say I'm pretty hyped for the presentations going on for E3. Already caught the EA one and it was alright. Still curious for more information for Anthem and how that's going to go but so far it looks alright. We'll see just how things go for it and the rest of the conferences.**

 **Reviews**

 **MADMatt6:** I'm very sorry to hear that. I don't have any pets so I don't know the feeling but at the very least if my uploading of the chapter helped even a little, I'm glad to have done so.

 **ChimaTigon:** I'm not sure what exactly she's in reference too, maybe the question asked before about possibly my favorite fairy tale but I don't know.

 **Zcdragon64:** Yeah, such a tease. In any case as much as I would have liked to try to incorporate some moments between Marcus and Pearl during their trip, I couldn't really come up with anything that wouldn't overshadow her moment with Greg. This whole episode and issue was focused more so around them so I let that be. Still this was the perfect opportunity I feel for Marcus and Lapis to have some moments together and not have to be dealing with anything or anyone else at the moment. Even though the moment was somewhat ruined at the end there, the follow-up I felt was nice.

 **Light Seeker 001 (Ch.66):** Yeah, a little on the review for this part but thank you nonetheless. We'll see how Bismuth reacts to seeing Jade or at the very least her gems now after so long and in a completely different form no less. **(Ch.67):** Sorry. Couldn't really come up with anything as much as I would have liked to. Jasper will be veeerrry pissed, and so will Marcus.

 **xXSpades231Xx:** Glad to hear that. It feels good to me whenever someone tells me they didn't like this or that episode and my work improves it if only a little. And for your previous preview I didn't feel disrespected. You reviewed and I answered as best I can. I try not to make every single chapter in a super serious tone and at some points will things of course be tamer than usual. Still, thank you for the reviews.

 **NJred2000:** You'll just have to wait and see. In terms of a rival, I have some ideas for a Gem but a human… I'm not too sure. An omake of Marcus human history? Oh my god I can only imagine the yelling. The date of the fic as being used for his birthday, maybe. We'll see how things go.

 **Patriota1993:** Thank you very much. Glad you loved how it went. Whether or not who its going to be that just interrupted their small vacation time, the fact is there is going to be a lot of destruction.

 **JackoManter31:** Yeah, I know. I'm a dick like that. I didn't want to but I just had to.

 **DatXeno91:** I play on your feelings like that because it gives me sick joy to see you all squirm when you expect something and don't get it. Hahaha! Just kidding. Sorry for the tease but it's just how it went. And now they have an enemy to contend with in the middle of a big city.

 **Thank you all for your support and reviews. Hopefully things continue to be alright for everyone from here on out. Fingers crossed. Go ahead and fave, follow, review, whatever it is you want to do, and make sure to have fun reading and have a great day.**


	69. 67 Friends in Low Places

It's the dead of night. The city has already shut off most of its power and people aren't out as before. However not everyone has the luxury of sleep whenever they want and must be out late at night to scrounge.

"Alright, let's see what we got." Meet Bill. A grizzled old man who doesn't have the best position in life. That position being is he's one of many in the city who are of the homeless variety. A sad life when one thinks about it, especially for someone with his previous place earlier in his life but one that he manages to make do. Not glamorous but he as well as his friends get by. His clothing is ragged, dirty, torn in some places but still works for him. A dark green t-shirt, brown cargo pants, combat boots with a long black duster coat covering the majority of his body let flow open. His skin is of a lightly tanned complexion and he has a small scruffy dark grey beard going all around his mouth, under his chin and neck and connecting to his hairline.

He goes up to a large dumpster and flips open the lids before he begins digging around in it. Nothing springs out at him at first…

*Plonk*

"Aaah!" Except an old jack in the box toy that literally springs out at him and makes him tumble into the dumpster full on. After a moment of annoyed mutterings, he grabs the toy and he's about to toss it but suddenly gets an idea. "Hmmm, actually… I'm sure he'll love this." He gently places the toy on the ground and goes back to scrounging around. Several minutes pass by and besides the toy, he found an old tarp still in useable condition and a ton of cans for him to go and recycle to possibly get a little cash. "Not a bad haul." He comments as he walks over to the beat-up shopping cart he uses and places the stuff inside. "Alright, I think its time to g- whoa!" He lightly shouts as something catches his leg. His cart goes rolling down the alleyway a little more but doesn't tip over as he stares down at what made him trip.

His eyes widen as he stares down at not the thing that made him trip but the person. A kid to be exact from what he can tell. Laying on the ground and almost covered by the dumpsters shadow which is why he didn't notice him before until now. "Oh." He moans at the odd place he finds this person and leans down. "Hey. Hey kid, wake up." He tries to shake the kid awake but not matter how rough and much he shakes him, he doesn't stir awake. A closer look at him shows he probably didn't get there to simply rest. He actually looks pretty beat up and not looking so good. In fact he doesn't really look like he's alive. "Ohhhh." Bill moans uneasily at the idea that he found a stiff. That proves false though as he checks his pulse both on his wrist and his neck to find a faint pulse. Weak but its still there. A quick check up of his body shows none of his injuries are anything fatal, leaving Bill confused as to why he's here, all alone. "Hmmmm… hm?" He begins to think but a small glint catches his eye. His eyes widen as he spots something held tightly in his hand.

* * *

"I'm telling you, best leave him alone."

"C'mon Bill! You see the size of this rock. It's a little cracked but can you imagine how much we'd be able to feed ourselves on this thing alone?"

"That may be true, but it looks like he's got a real tight grip on that thing."

"Ahhhh, he's knocked out ese. He shouldn't have in the first place. Don't know why you brought him here but I'm not letting this opportunity go. Just needs a little elbow grease and… I… got…"

My finger moves.

My eyes shoot open and my other hand catches something.

"Grah!"

"Whoa whoa whoa!"

Voices shout out in worry and surprise as my hand catches the guys throat. His hands immediately leave Lapis and goes to tear my arm from his throat but he can't. Slowly I begin to sit up from my laying position, the blanket placed over me falling away as I slowly stand up to my full height. My lips pursed back, teeth grit and an almost carnal growl escaping me as I stare at the man that was trying to steal her from me. His feet lift off the ground as I hold him up, anger and hate plastered on my face. "You… will… not… take… her." I manage to say, despite the pain coursing through me but the anger numbs it.

"Hold it there kid." A gruff old man walks up close to me, lightly grabbing my arm holding his friend up. I snarl at him but he doesn't seem put off by it. He holds a calm expression on his face as he has his hand placed on my arm. "No need to get violent there. Carlos here was just being stupid and he's sorry." He turns to the guy I'm holding up. "Isn't that right?"

"Ye…yeah! So… Sor… ry." He manages to choke out despite my crushing grip.

It's weird. Normally I wouldn't give up this easy but this guy, he doesn't show any fear or anger against me and especially to what I'm doing to his friend. Just… keeps that calm, almost hopeful look on his face. My anger slowly begins to dissipate, and I let him go. "Thank you." He tells me with a smile.

"Ghuuuuuu!" The guy I was choking, this Carlos, breathes in a large lungful of air as he clutches his neck.

"There you go. Breathe in. Steady breathes." The old man crouches next to his friend and gently pats his back. The both of them don't really look like in the best of conditions but that isn't really my focus right now.

I… am incredibly confused right now on who these people are and where the hell I am for that matter. I make one thing clear though. "Don't…" I make my voice heard, making them look at me. "Don't… you dare touch her." I firmly tell them, referring to Lapis in my hand. Some of them and other people around look a little confused by my words but the old man nods nonetheless.

"Understood. No ones gonna hurt anyone here. Just ease yourself now. You look about ready to collapse." What the old man says is about true because I now notice my breathing is coming in heavy and ragged. The pain has receded a lot but still remains as a dull buzz through me. Letting out a small groan of pain, I sit back down where I just was laying. It's not a furnished bed but I can't be picky now. Once I steady my breathing, I finally look up and take a long hard look around me. Wherever I am, this place seems to be in a large long back alley way of sorts with buildings covering most of the sides and protection from above comes in the form of an overpass railroad system over our heads behind the buildings. This place is also inhabited by more than just the two in front of me because I see a ton more people here. All in makeshift bedding and sleeping areas with small fires and barrels burning to keep everyone warm, as well as providing light in the limited place we are in, including myself as theirs a small fire set up in front of me, like a campfire with large rocks surrounding it. The train system above is definitely a useable one because a commuter train passes by, the sound the train makes thundering across the clustered area and further making it echo all over the place.

"Nghh." I groan as the rumbling and noise makes my head pound with a massive headache.

"Don't worry. You get used to it." A new voice speaks to me from the side. It came from a woman nearby I didn't notice before. I stare at her warily, same with the other people, while I gently pat myself and much to my annoyance, I have no weapons on me.

"Shit." I quietly curse. Looking at my shoulder where my cracked gem is at, covered by the sleeve of my jacket, my weapons aren't an option either. I'm trying but… I just don't feel anything. Seeing as how I'm not really in a favorable position, best I can do now is gather info. "Who are you? And where am I?" I ask in a neutral tone.

"Fair enough." He says and smiles before sitting on a stack of pallets in front of me. "Names Bill. I'm the impromptu leader of this group you see here." He introduces me and does a small wave to the whole secluded place we are in, meaning all the people here. "I found you a little while ago unconscious near a dumpster. Damn near thought you were dead until I heard you breathing."

The memories of what transpired before that lead me to that particular spot are a bit fuzzy, but I remember what I need for the most part. "Almost." I say under my breath. My left-hand clenches in anger at what I dealt with.

"Hi, I'm Katherine." The lady from before tells me her name. As I look at her, I notice she has long dark hair, brown eyes, and looks to either in her early 30's. Not sure but she has a long coat on over her shirt and pants with her sandals.

"And this guy you almost killed earlier is Carlos." Bill says to the guy I was choking earlier, who's still looking a little pissed at my action earlier as he sits on the ground past the fire. He looks to be of the Mexican type but I can't be too sure in this light, something like that I guess. He has black short hair, a small mustache and wears a green jacket over his dark grey shirt and torn black jeans and tennis shoes. I don't take kindly to his angered look at me so I fix him with my best murderous gaze at him. It works as he subtly recoils and settles down before I retain my neutral façade. "If its not too much, can I- Oh. Hello boy." He suddenly shifts himself into a more happier tone and looks past me. Turning back, as it turns out what he suddenly greets is actually a dog slowly padding up to us. Right off the bat I can tell it's a German Shepard, a slightly smaller one at that so it must not be at its adult life yet. The dog looks a little grimy and dirty but seems to be in high spirits as it walks up to Bill and he greets him back.

"You have a dog?" I can't help but ask.

"Not mine to own. He doesn't have an owner when I first met him so he simply wanders in every now and then." He quickly explains as he gives the dog some scratches around his head. "He's pretty docile so he gets along well with us." He finishes saying and sits back up while the dog lays itself down next to him at his feet. As soon as he places his head on top of his front paws does he notice me and perk up as he stares at me. We stare at each other for a few seconds until he settles down and goes back to resting.

"Hm." I smirk at the dog before looking back at Bill with a neutral expression. "You were going to ask me something?" I remind him before the dog came by.

"Oh right." He remembers before and straightens himself before looking directly at me. "I was going to say, can I ask what your name is?"

"…" I stare at Bill for a few seconds, trying my best to gouge if theirs anything about him I should be worried about. I don't see anything about him that would otherwise speak out ulterior motive. "… Marcus." I simply say my name without much emotion in my voice.

"Hello Marcus." Bill properly greets me with a small smile. "Now I'd like to inquire as to why I had found you unconscious near a dumpster in an alleyway?" He begins to ask but gets a look of realization. "Oh, that reminds me. Here you are Kat." He pulls out something from a cart next to him and hands it over to the woman. "I figured Kyle might like this."

"Ohhh. How wonderful. Yes, I'm sure he'll love this." I don't know who she's talking about but she takes the offered box with a handle and walks off. I guess to go give it to this person.

"I'm glad to hear that. Now, about how you got there…" He leaves his words open for me to fill in the rest.

"It was nothing." I do what I can to keep my origins or exactly how I got there a secret. No reason why I should tell them anything. "Just a fight I lost."

"Dude… you have burns on your body, and you look about ready to die. Seems more than just a fight." Carlos states bluntly. As much as I don't want to have it known, the cool air of the growing cold of night already stings a little to my wounds and I hate it.

"Then you shouldn't get involved with what I did, less it happen to you." I almost threaten them. I can't afford to play favorites or niceties right now. Not when I'm vulnerable and so is her.

"I told you you shouldn't have brought him here." Carlos gets up in a huff and walks away.

Bill doesn't look to see his friend leave, only sigh at his abrupt departure. "He means well, he just doesn't take to new people or strangers all that well."

"And me choking him to death didn't have anything to do with that?" I ask incredulously.

He lets out a small chuckle before sighing again. "Maybe a little. But I'm sure you've already figured it out but we don't really have a lot going for ourselves here." He comments and turns to everyone else here. Taking a look for myself, its not surprise that this place is kind of an impromptu homeless village for these people. Even though their position in life isn't at the best point, I have to admit their means of creating this is kind of spot on. From the tarp and blanket coverings for makeshift roofs despite the railroad tracks above, not to mention a bunch of sheet metal and wooden pieces being used to make their little homes. Various small fires going out to provide warmth for pretty much everyone who could. A lot of people aren't all just a specific type of person. I'm seeing both men and women of all types of ages, from adults to elderly, and much to my surprise, a kid. I see Katherine from earlier next to a little boy that I can't make out all that well, maybe around ten years of age but I can't be too sure. He is sitting close against the building with a bunch of things scattered all around him. He seems to be working on an old Rubik's cube slowly as he begins to turn it around in different directions. When she steps next to him, she places the little box down next to him for him to see. When he does, he freezes in place and looks at it before placing his cube down on a small stand nearby, mid-way from turning his next side. Once he's sure its not going to fall off, he takes the toy and begins to turn the crank. It turns out to be Jack in the box toy and while it 'plonks' with the familiar noise, he doesn't seem surprised and simply resets it before doing it again while Katherine gives him a small hug and walking off. "Not a lot of people care for us you know."

Bill continues speaking, making look back at him. "Yeah?"

"When people see us in the street, more often than not, they'll go ahead and ignore us. Not bothering to lift a finger to help us." He states sadly as he looks into the fire. "Others though…"

I look on confused as he stops talking altogether. _'Wonder what's got him to stop?'_ As I begin to think as to why, I also note that the dog begins to let out a low growl too. _'And what's got him so angry?'_

"WHAT'S UP BITCHEEESSS?!" A loud, boisterous, incredibly annoying voice speaks out over the dreary quiet this place has before.

"…They tend to find us, for reasons." He finishes saying as I turn my head and glance out to the side of my vision to see a small group of guys at the entrance of one of the alleyways. Four of them to be exact. Their dressed plainly enough but their looks, accessories and just how they walk and present themselves just screams completely self-absorbed and full of themselves. Their clothes are clean and look to be high-end in terms of designers and all. One of them has a baseball bat and another one has a camcorder. I'm not liking this at all as they laugh and start filing into the place. They seem to be in their late twenty's but they act like spoiled kids.

"Who are those guys?" I ask quietly at Bill as they seem to start getting into everyone's business.

"Just some misguided young kids looking to get some form of fame. They go around, picking fights and record themselves for whatever reason. Most often they'll find us without homes, seeing us as easier targets." As he explains that, we see them harassing a small group nearby but otherwise not hurting anyone. I still don't like what their doing though. "We can't really fight back."

"Why not?" I ask incredulously. Theirs a lot more of them living here than there are of those jackasses. A couple may get injured but if it means that they won't get harassed anymore then I think it might be worth it.

"Look at us. Look at them." He tells me to do, so I do. Turning back the new arrivals, they seem to be pretty high up on the social ladder from the way their dressed and acting. Looking at the people who live here, in the makeshift place, in tattered clothes, cobbled together homes and old food, I know what he's getting at.

"Oh."

"Exactly." He nods at my realization. "They're kids to some wealthy family's that live and own many parts of the city. If we were to do anything against them, they have to power and position to either throw us in jail or kick us out of here."

"So, you just take it?" I ask.

He gives me a low chuckle as his eyes cast a shadow and looks towards the fire. "Sometimes, fighting isn't the only answer to a problem." I look weirdly at him before I notice some footsteps nearby.

"Hey pops! Long time no see!" The leader of their little group huddles around us as they come up to us. The dog begins to growl at them but a careful hand pet from Bill calms him down from doing anything.

Bill for his part simply sighs in slight irritation but still doesn't look at them. "Hello." He simply offers them a greeting.

"Oh, come on. Why the long face? And who's this?" I flinch as the guy finally looks at me, as do his friends. "A new addition?"

"…Something like that." Bill hesitantly says.

I grit my teeth as for what might happen. At the very least I carefully maneuver Lapis's gem to slip her into my inner jacket. "Hey! What do we have here?"

' _Fuck!'_ I yell in my head as one of them grabs my arm from behind and pulls it up, putting her gem in full view of everyone to see her tightly clenched in my hand. "Whohohoo! Look at the size of that rock?" The leader completely forgets Bill and walks over to me as I forcefully tear my arm out of his friends grip. "Well, now what's someone like you holding onto something like that. That just doesn't seem right." He playfully says to me and as he walks over to me do I get up and begin backing up. I don't get too far though as two of them place their hands on my back, stopping me from going too far. They have sneer smiles on their faces while their fourth friend continues to record us with a camcorder. "Tell you what, how's about you go ahead and give of us that piece and we'll let you go peacefully… for now." He says with a slight chuckle, eliciting a chuckle from his friends as well.

Even at that declaration, and even if what I have in my hand WASN'T the life force of one of my closest friends, I highly doubt they'd do anything to leave these people alone for very long.

Besides, I don't care at this point. "You honestly think I'm going to give her to you? You must be the biggest idiot in the entire world." I bluntly say to him. His almost carefree and happy demeanor turns sour as I insult him.

"You don't wanna do that." I hear Bill say. To me or them, I have no idea.

"What did you say punk?" The leader threatens me as he holds his bat up menacingly, ready to swing it and take my head off.

"You think I'm going to fucking listen to you? You self-entitled spoiled piece of shit." I outright insult him. I have been through enough crap in time living and I am not going to listen to anyone's demands right now when I've gone through hell.

"You-!" The guy angrily can't even finish his sentence as I can see a vein start to appear on his forehead.

"Make it easy on yourself. Just give up the stone and—" The guy to my left tries to pull Lapis from my grip, no doubt impatient, but its not going to be that easy.

*Smack*

Never easy. "Arhhh!" The guy yelps out loudly in pain as I pull my hand from him and follow-up with an elbow straight to his nose faster than he can react. He reflexively pulls back and grabs his face before pulling his hands away and finds he has a bloody nose. I softly growl at him in a threatening manner.

As I stare at the both of them, ready for either one to attack me, they suddenly smile and look past me. Big mistake on their part. "Hraa!" A yell goes out as I duck and step backwards, making the leader completely miss me as his bat goes flying over my head. I turn around as I dodge the attack and as soon as he finishes passing me does he bring his bat up and try to bring it back down on top of me but my leg already comes out and slams right into his chest, sending him flying back into his friend.

As I slowly bring my leg back down, the guys who's nose I broke comes up and tries to punch me but I simply lean back and let his punch miss me. He tries to punch me again and again but he continues to miss repeatedly until after one particular whiffed punch do I retaliate with hard headbutt straight to his face. "Ahhh!" We both yell in pain. He reflexively steps back cradling his face from the hit while I take a few steps back to try to steady myself, my head feeling very very dizzy. _'Damn. I must've been more injured than I thought.'_ I can barely even make that thought as my mind is completely muddled and hard to focus on. My vision and the rest of my senses are messed up too.

"Come here!" In my moment of trying to steady myself, they were able to get their bearings so two of them are able to grab me on both my arms and pulls me next to a giant metal girder holding the train tracks above up and hold me there while their leader winds up with his bat, ready to try to cave in my chest with a sadistic smile on his face.

"Come on boys. Let's show this guy what happens when someone fucks with us." The leader playfully says and waits for his friend with the camcorder get in close for a shot of my apparent beating.

It doesn't come though as when he comes in close to hit me, my right leg shoots out and hits him in the thigh. Not enough to hurt so much but it does make him grunt at the hit and step back for another hit. This time I kick him straight in the chest, making him fall back to catch his breath. I look at the jackasses holding me before bringing my left leg up and kicking the one on my left in the shin. He shouts in pain and hops on one foot for a second but its enough for me to push him off and make him fall to the ground and freeing my arm. The now unscathed third lackey finally gets injured by me as in my angered state, I bring my hand up, clenched tightly into a fist around Lapis's gem and I deliver a full-on punch straight to his face while at the same time pulling my arm he's holding onto towards me. He grunts loudly as I effectively knock him onto his back as grabs his face.

My new weakened state is even more apparent as that punch alone I feel like I broke my fingers. I cradle my hand in pain but ultimately, I'm happy there hasn't been anymore damage to Lapis. "Fuck." I weakly say.

"You son of a bitch!"

*Smack*

"Aaahh!" I shout as something hard hits my back. Placing my right hand on the girder, I look back to see the leader winding up for another but I duck and bring my left arm up. Again, feels like my arm breaks but that doesn't stop me. Grabbing his right arm holding the bat with my right hand, I wrap my left arm around the bat and his hand before pulling it up, locking his arm harshly and on the verge of breaking before I launch a palm strike to the joint. It doesn't break his arm but it makes him let go of his weapon and for me to take it for my own. A kick to the stomach makes him stagger back and let me hold the bat properly and block one of them trying to punch me from behind. His fist full on strikes the wooden bat and unlike me on a good day, he recoils harshly from the pain before I push him back with the shaft of the weapon before hitting him in the face with just the flat top part of the bat.

As soon as he goes down does the third guy run into me and try to tackle me to the ground. He only succeeds in pushing me along the ground as he holds me at my waist while my feet slide along the ground. He only pushes me a couple feet before I slam the shaft of the bat on his back then the top right where his spine is. He grunts in pain as he lets go and straightens up before launching a punch to my face. At the same time, my bat swings along my left and impacts his shoulder, making him miss me and fall to the ground. With the both of them down, the leader gets back up and comes at me to try to punch me but as he misses me with his right punch, I roll myself along the ride of him until I make it behind him and slam the bat right into the back of his knee, making him yell as he goes down and cradles his leg.

Next all I hear is the steadiness of my labored breathing, as well as the groans of all three of my fighters around me until a foot steps away. Suddenly the bat swings to my right until I am pointing it directly at the fourth and final guy who did nothing to help his friends. My head cranes to the side until I am staring at him, still recording and quietly shaking as I step closer to him, my weapon still held towards him in a threatening manner.

"Drop it." My voice is low and laced with a threatening tone to make sure he know I am not fucking around. He finally takes the camcorder from his face and I can fully see his scared as all hell face before I drop the bat. "Get out of here… and never return."

"Fuck! This guy is crazy!" I hear one of them say behind me before they begin to get up and help each other get the hell away from me. The camera guy even walks over and grabs the leader before hauling his ass away from me. I don't bother to watch as they spout curses and threats at me while they run with their tails tucked between their legs. Once its silent again and I know their gone, I finally let myself relax

"Ahhhh." I hiss in pain. Now I am pretty tired, my body is sore and I still have a dull headache from hits I took and dealt. Still, now that I'm no longer in danger, I look at Lapis's gem and sigh with a smile. "Still safe." I place the gem against my heart for a second before placing her in my pocket. I then slowly pick up the camcorder and check to see if its alright.

"Did you think you were helping beating them up like that? Did you think you were doing a good thing?" I ignore Carlos's angry voice as I examine the item in my hands. It's frame is a little cracked but overall it looks to still be useable. "Do you have any idea what their going to do now?" It takes a little bit of careful effort but I manage to pop open the cartridge containing the memory card that recorded the whole thing. "They're going to go to the police, tell them what happened, make it seem that WE were the ones that attacked them first and they'll either evict us from here or arrest us." Camera held in one hand, I look at the memory card carefully to make sure it stays in good condition. I smile seeing it still perfectly useable. "Did you hear me?! You completely fucked us!"

"Not if you have evidence."

Any retort or argument Carlos was going to have against me is gone as he takes in my words. "What?"

"Evidence. Have enough of it and there would be irrefutable proof of your innocence and how it was just those assholes fault they got into a fight they couldn't stomach and how you all had nothing to do with the fight that just transpired." Once I turn around, its then I notice I seem to have gotten quite a bit of attention from the people living here as some are about while others stare at me. My body's soreness and the dull pain is starting to come back at me harder now so with a slight limp, I walk up to Carlos and give him the camcorder. He takes it with his mouth slightly agape and I walk over to Bill. "Hold onto this then." He nods as he takes the card and keeps it safe.

"And besides, even if they somehow make the argument it was fabricated, the only way they can possibly say its fake is by the use of some sophisticated computer editing, tools and skills used." As soon as I finish saying that, we all delve into a small silence as everyone stares at me. Slowly I turn my head from right to left in a sweeping motion as I carefully examine each and every shack, shed, home or anything that might hold something for the people here. "… Prrrreeeetty sure you guys don't have a computer… or the skills to edit something like that fight." I simply finish saying slowly walk back to where I had found myself sleeping earlier. "No offense." I add as an afterthought before I sit down on the makeshift bedding area. The soreness of my body begins to overtake me and I begin to relax as I lay down. As soon as I pull the covers over me and lay down on my side, I notice that the dog is right next to me staring at me quizzically. "Good dog." I rub and pat his head, making him wag his tail and pant while I lay back into a more comfortable position. Before I know it, I'm out like a light.

* * *

"Hey, wake up." A voice wakes Marcus from his slumber. With a bit of drowsiness, his eyes open and inhales deeply. His vision goes blurry for a second from the drowsiness but they refocus well enough to see Bill, Carlos and a couple others around, including the dog still next to him, some of them eating. A quick look at his watch reveals that he has only been asleep for maybe an hour or two, leaving just a few or more hours left until the sun rises to signify its morning. The smell of food slowly jostles him back into fully awake some more and with a grunt, he manages to shift himself into a sitting position. To his relief, the pain has receded from his body into its dull state so now he doesn't feel like dying… as much, anymore. "Here." His senses go on full alert as a hand comes into his vision and reveals a can of peaches with a slightly bent spoon pocking out the top.

His eyes go wide as he stares at the small can of food in front of him, suddenly realizing how hungry he is, before following the hand up its arm until he sees Katherine offering it to him with a smile. He stares in disbelief at her but she simply smiles and gestures to the can a little more. Carefully taking the can in hand, he nods at her. "Thank you."

"It's the least we can do. You were pretty good against those guys." She comments and sits down next him as she eats her own meal.

"Yeah. That was crazy." Another guy comments before turning to Bill. "Although I bet you could have done that too huh Bill?"

The old man in question takes a moment to stop eating before he looks down. "… That was a long time ago fellas." Marcus looks weirdly at him at what he means but a new question stops him from thinking nay further on that.

"So, how's a kid like you learn to fight like that?" Carlos asks. Now the others are curious as to what he might say to explain how he was able to take on three guys at once with one of them using a baseball bat.

Marcus for his part simply lets out a deep sigh and hangs his head a little, careful not to let his food spill but rights himself up soon after, albeit a little bit more depressed. "I've… had to fight. Like a lot. So much." He breathes the last part to himself, slightly in disbelief now that he's had a moment to realize everything he's done up until that moment.

"Like what kind? Those weren't your run of the mill brawler moves. Some of those training and martial arts style." Bill points out.

Marcus doesn't bother to look at the ma, or anyone for that matter, as he continues to look downwards in a sulking state. One hand holding the can and spoon inside it, he lightly rubs his arm with his free hand before sighing. "You wouldn't believe even if I told you." He says darkly. The other look on confused by his words but seeing as he goes back to eating and doesn't look like he wants to elaborate more on the subject, they go ahead and drop it. Silence again greets everyone for awhile until a train passes by overhead, making some of them wince but none more so than Marcus as he grips his head from the small headache. Regardless once its passes, he finishes eating before sitting up and relaxing a little. He looks around the place a bit more, taking it all in a bit more than when he first woke up there. His sights soon lay on the child a little ways away who's working on his toy cube again. "That kid…" He suddenly says, directing his statement to Katherine right next to him. She finishes polishing off her food before she looks at him. "Kyle, right? He's yours, right?"

She nods at him before looking at her kid and sporting a fond smile on her face. "He is. He's mine and I love him with all my heart." She answers sincerely as she stares at her kid who continues to work on the cube.

Marcus nods before glancing at the kid and noticing his unusual behavior. Normally kids would be all hyper and most often full of energy and annoying their parents but this one… is the calmest he's ever seen a child to be. He's so focused on his task right now and seeing the large portion of similarly colored sections, he's getting close to completion. "So why are the two of you here, if you don't mind me asking?" He asks her.

She lets out a sad chuckle before staring into the fire. "Just… a lot of bad decisions… and bad luck." She breathes deeply before explaining. "I was… a pretty reckless and stupid girl when I was younger. Got in trouble a lot, like all the time. My parents didn't like but its how I was. Rebellious all the time. But it really took the cake, really stretched my parents patience with my actions when I… I got pregnant." Marcus keeps his face impassive as she shakes her head and offers a soft chuckle. "Just a one-night stand that ended up with giving me more than I ever saw myself getting." She turns to Kyle but she doesn't have a look of regret, still a look of happiness at her son. "My parent's… they didn't like the idea that I was pregnant so young, especially since the father was shipped off to the military soon after. They wanted… they wanted me to get rid of…"

"You don't have to keep talking if you don't want to." Marcus states, seeing as how its sensitive subject he doesn't want her to tell him if she doesn't want.

"No, its fine. It… gets a little easier every time I talk about it, especially with my friends, and family." She says with a thoughtful look to the others sitting around, who return her smile back along with head nods in agreement.

' _Huh. Friends… and family. Even though none of them are related. Yeah… I see that.'_ His thoughts return to that of his own impromptu family that he has come to know in his time of living. "Right." He mutters the word to himself, having some far-fetched but somewhat close idea to what she's going through. He sighs before looking at her again. "So, what happened next?"

"Yes… my parents wanted me to get an abortion but I just… I couldn't go through with it. The more I thought about it, the idea of… losing my own future child was just… unfathomable to me. I told them I wanted to keep him and I wouldn't budge on the subject. So they kicked me out."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you. But really, I'm made my peace with the situation and I don't regret my actions at all. We may live here, but we're living, even with his condition."

"Condition?" This gets Marcus's attention. He had an idea that their was something different with the kid but this just confirms.

"Yeah he's autistic." She reveals to him. "He always acted a little differently than what you'd expect from a child and… well the signs kind of point to him being that. Always quiet, doesn't really talk, and sometimes he finds comfort and joy in repeated activities in his own little place." A quick glance to her son and the smiles still isn't gone. "Regardless though, I still love him with all my heart."

Marcus stares at her for a few seconds before he slightly leans back and looks at the kid. He's close to finishing up his cube now and has a ball nearby next to the jack-in-the-box he got recently. "Huh." He mutters before taking some more bites. _'Never met an autistic person before. Even so, if he's content enough to live in this type of environment. Lord knows any other child would most likely be miserable and it'd be hell for the mother to deal with that. At least now he seems alright.'_ Still, now child should live in these conditions. None of these people should. But what can I do? Certainly nothing right now.

I go to take the last bite of my meal.

*Click*

My body freezes. My spoon just an inch from my open mouth as the feel of metal presses to the back of my head.

"Get… Up."

' _Fuck.'_

* * *

 **Before anyone thinks of telling me, flame me or whatever on the inclusion of an autistic child, I have some first hand experience with an autistic child and that comes in the form of my brother. I've lived my whole life with my brother being autistic so I have an idea of how it is. Some people can live their whole lives, whole fully normal that you wouldn't think that they would be labeled as such, while others not so much and it can be pretty obvious. My brothers somewhat in the middle where he understands and is smart about a lot of things but my family and I have those moments where its kind of hard for him to communicate what he wants or does to us. Doesn't matter in the least to me though. I love him regardless. Don't know why I'm telling you all this but… I don't know. Guess I just felt like it.**

 **Still, with the ending of the chapter, it looks like Marcus is not out of the woods yet. Originally this chapter was going to be longer with stuff from the next chapter into this one but I noticed it was starting get a little long and I was working on it for too long as it is. So I decided to split it into two basically.**

 **I don't know if you all had heard or not but we have definite date on the new episodes for Steven Universe. A week long set of episodes to be more exact. July 2 is when it starts and after that we'll be subjected to the fallout of one of the biggest reveals in the shows history. Definitely want to see how things are going to fall or come together with the Crystal Gems. Sapphire was pretty angry in the promo when she ran.**

 **Here are the reviews:**

 **Grimlock987:** As much as I would like to, that'd be kind of a stretch considering the lack of physical evidence there is. He can make all the possibilities he wants but their really isn't a ton of physical stuff he can find.

 **FractionOfASecond:** Glad you like it.

 **ChimaTigon:** I did. She's pretty.

 **Cf96 (Ch. 67):** Yes, so close. **(68):** Thank very much.

 **DatXeno91:** I know. I am. I have subjected Marcus and you all to so much.

 **JustinTheSpider:** Yeah, that's something that hasn't been addressed in the show itself but hopefully my assumptions and inferring on the whole 'hybrid gem cracking' is well enough in the lore and how things would actually. Makes sense when you think about it. E3 was pretty awesome. What had got me most excited though was the new 'Marching Fire' update coming to For Honor in October. New Heroes, New faction, New reworks and a new game mode. Man the game is going be something else when that gets put in.

 **Patriota1993:** Your not wrong. In the slew of bullets coming at them do a few actually manage to hit some of their vital areas. The sniper thing was an option too but didn't really fit in well either so I just went with the lucky shots. However their tactics and way of going about in trying to kill Marcus will be explained a little further down the line. I do hope what happened didn't detract from the experience of reading it all though.

 **Light Seeker 001:** Yeah sorry about that. To be honest I did kind of rush in putting the chapter out so I'm not surprised they're were a chunk of errors here and there. Sorry about that.

 **NJred2000:** Well if Marcus were to get a human rival it would have to be someone either very very skilled in close combat with a variety of martial arts and fighting styles to match Marcus's strength and speed. The other option as you said would be the person being pretty damn smart and using whatever tricks or leverage he has against Marcus to get the upperhand against him as opposed to combat since technically, his abilities are literally on the superhuman level. I'll keep the thought.

 **Guest:** You and many other people. She was always on the options I had for a shipping.

 **I also want everyone to know that since the internet doesn't look like its going to be instantly blocked off to everyone, I'm going back to writing for all my stories again. I'll be starting on Star wars because that one is sorely in need of an update then going from there. Sorry again for basically leaving you all on another cliffhanger, but oh well. I'll do what I can to get the next part to you guys but until then, we'll have to be patient.**

 **Thank you all for your support. Go ahead and fave, follow, review, whatever you want to do. Most of all though, make sure to have fun reading and have a great day everyone.**


	70. 68 Home is Where I Belong

It doesn't take a lot for me to figure out the item pressed against my head is none other than a gun. I've dealt with enough of them in my life to know what's what.

"I said… get… up."

I sigh at the demanding voice beyond me and proceed to lower my can to the ground. The dog growls at the gunman but I steadily pat him down to calm him. He lets out a low whine before laying his head back down on his front paws. The others freak out a little at the sight of seeing a gun and are intensely uneasy but I remain the picture of calm. Slowly I turn around in my seat and slowly stand up so I'm staring right at my potential assailant.

It's the stupid guys from before. And big man's got himself a 1911. "Not so tough now are you?" He sneers at me with a smile as he holds the weapon at my face. My face continues to keep its calm neutral façade while the idiot in front of me has a grin and his hand is lightly shaking. "That's right. I have a gun now and its pointed right at your head. You fucked up before real hard like and now theirs nothing you can do."

"…" I stare at him for a few seconds while his friends smile at their leaders' action and sudden advantage they apparently have over me. As soon as I saw the gun in my face, all it took me was only a second to see all that I needed to see. "…You really are… the biggest dumbass in the entire world." I blatantly harshly insult him right to his face with the gun pointed between my eyes. His grin turns to a frown of anger.

"Are you god damn stupid?!" He yells and pushes the gun right to my temple. "I have a gun! You're the dumbass! YOU must be the stupidest person the world because I HAVE a gu—"

*Fwip*

And just like that, I take the gun from his hand and turn it around on him. His anger now turns to fear as he steps back a few. His friends also begin moving away but as I glance around lazily to them while keeping my gun sight on the leader, they stop. "I have the gun." I reply in a neutral tone. At this point my annoyance is way up there in the upper limits and soon, its goings to turn right into anger. I have to be careful though. Too much and something bad… will happen.

He begins walking away but I close the distance and place the barrel right to his own forehead, making him crouch and begin to crouch, getting ready to beg. "Whoa… whoa whoa man! I-I-I-I didn't mean anything by it. It was just a joke I swear! I just wanted to intimidate you you know? P-Please don't hurt me." He's begging at this point and looks almost close to tears. I continue to stare at him for a bit until I slowly pull the weapon away from him. He relaxes a little at no longer having a gun at his head but I hold it up for him to see.

"You wanna know why you're the biggest dumbass in the world?" I ask him. He looks at me confused before he gives a meek little head shake. I turn the gun sideways and move my thumb over the side of it. "Because, you forgot to take the safety off." I bluntly tell him. He stares at me in stunned silence for a few seconds as he takes in the info.

*Click*

"Now it's dangerous." Now I'm angry.

His eyes widen. "Grck!" He chokes out as I grab his throat and force the barrel right into his mouth. Anger graces my face as I force right to the back of his throat, making sure he feels the fact that he has a GOD DAMN GUN IN HIS MOUTH!

"Did you think it was going to be that easy?" I whisper right up against his face in a deathly quiet voice, making it so he can hear and almost feel the threat I have laced in my tone. "Did you think you were going to win that easily? Did you think you were going to automatically win because you had a GUN?!" My voice begins to gain volume, garnering the attention of everyone else in the alleyway but my focus is entirely on the sniveling asshole I have crying and snotting in front of me on his knees. "What?! Did you think it was going to be easy to kill someone?! IT NEVER GETS EASY!" I straight up yell right into his face. He's full on crying and moaning right now but I don't care. I really really don't care anymore. "But you know what…" I begin to say and my angered frown morphs into a sadistic grin as I lean in close. "It's starting to get easy for me." His eyes widen at the insinuation I make. "If I were to kill you right now, it wouldn't matter. Your life would end but mine would keep on living… and I wouldn't lose any sleep at all. Your nothing to me, you hear me! YOUR NOTHING!"

"That's enough!"

"WHY?!" I whirl around in anger at the grizzled old man behind me. My gun stays focused on the guy below me but its not pressed against his throat, only between his teeth but the threat is still there. I stare at Bill angrily as he demands I stop. His face is hardened and firm but reserved anger, not the calmness I've seen him before. "You told me before these guys continue to harass you all the time! Why should you care if he dies or not? I'M the one fighting! I'M the one with the blood on my hands! Why should you care?!" I demand and stare back at the asshole next to me.

"BECAUSE THEIRS ALREADY BEEN ENOUGH BLOOD IN THIS WORLD!"

"…" Now that… that gets me to pause. Slowly, I turn to look at him out of the corner of my eye.

"For as long as I can remember, we as humans have always found ways to hurt each other. Through wars, desperation, greed… anger." I look away as he says the last part but he keeps going. "For too long we have always found some reason, some way to kill each other. Sometimes because it's the easiest choice, or they won't bother looking for alternative choices." His face isn't in its angered state anymore but now he looks almost… sad as he looks down. "I… was a soldier before. For a long time, I was soldier and I was a good one. I've killed and taken so many lives over the course of my life, that I can barely call what I have now a life. I still see their faces when I sleep." After a few seconds of quiet, he looks up and slowly walks over to me. My eyes continue to stay on him as he walks up to me but I don't remove the gun. He moves right next to me and stares right at me. "You say you've killed before… please, don't take anymore. You think it gets easier… but really… it doesn't."

"…" I continue to stare at him for what feels like a long time before I slowly glance around me. The first I see is the friends of the leader I have at gunpoint, who all stare at me worried, scared and shaking. Next, is the residents who live in this area. Each one of them continues to wear the tattered dirty clothes of a person without a home but each of them also look on without uncertainty as to just what might happen next, mostly in fear. As I look, I spot the dog, Carlos, Katherine and her son nearby together. The dog and Carlos are standing in front of the mother and son and ready to act if things go south. The mother however… holds her son closely, protectively hugging him. Kyle… just stares at me without any indication as to what he wants. When I'm done staring, I turn to the person in my grip, his tears have already run out but I can see the dry marks on his face. He still has the same feared and absolutely scared beyond belief look on his face. He can't speak but the look in his eyes are all that's needed to convey what he wants.

He wants to live.

The gun shakes in my hand as the trigger begins to depress. I feel everyone around me tense up and get ready to act. The temptation to pull the trigger is very very close.

"Aof!"

But not fully. He grunts as I push him roughly to the ground. He stays there dazed for a second until he looks up at me. I stare at him with any angry annoyed look before I pull the gun up and take out the magazine. A quick pull the slide and the chambered round comes out but I catch in mid-air. With the weapon now ammoless, I toss the gun into his lap. He flinches as he clumsily tries to catch it before settling it on his lap. He stares at the weapon before looking at me. Ever so slowly, I crouch down next to him, reigniting his fear before I hold the magazine up to his eyes. "Come back here again… mess with these people again… I will kill you with this magazine."

"… B-B-B-But h-h-h-how are you g-g-going to k-k-kill me with t-t-that?" He stutters hardcore as his own curiosity gets the better of him in this moment.

He lightly screams as I suddenly grab the front of his shirt and proceed to effortlessly lift him off the ground one-handed. "You wanna find out?"

"No! Nononono, man! I don't! Please! Let me go." He begs.

I let him sweat as I hold him there for a bit before I drop him. He falls to the ground in a heap and looks back at me. "Then… run." I tell him. But he doesn't move, and neither does his friends. All of them are too stunned and scared to move. "RUUUNNN!" I give them a loud incentive. That gets them moving as they all run straight out the alleyway and into the street, one of them grabbing their leader friend and pulling him to his feet. I stand there staring at them as they run until they eventually turn to the side and out of sight. I look to the ground and see he didn't bother taking the gun. "Pathetic." I scoff and scoop the gun up. It's effortless for me at this point when I reload it and slip it into one of the holsters inside my jacket. Once I do, try to make my way back to my little sleep area but I have a massive headache. Actually, the pain on me has flared up and making me feel uneasy about it. Even so, I don't bother looking at anyone as I sit down and stead myself. The headache is pounding my head and makes it hard for me to form coherent thoughts. _'Ow… crap.'_ That's about the only thing I can think of but my anger from before leaves me in a brooding mood and I simply sit there. I can still feel everyone staring at as I stare into the core of the fire in front of me. Footsteps I can hear for a bit until out of the peripheral of my eyes I see the original members I met before trying to see my front. Katherine and Carlos are to my left before she turns around and I barely hear her, the dog pads up to me, but its Bill that walks straight up and stands in front of me, past the fire. "You shouldn't have helped me. Shouldn't have tried to help just now. You don't know who I am, and you don't know what I am. I'm not a normal person. I'm nothing like all of you." I straight up say.

"That's not true. Your just someone who's been dealt a bad hand in life." Bill tries to ease all this on me.

"…" But it doesn't work. I bring my hand up and stare at it for a good long while. "… No. It's never that simple." I let out a sigh and resume staring into the fire. "I'm… a monster." I declare. That's pretty much it isn't it? As long as I can remember, it's always been constantly fighting over and over and over again with barely any times rest for me. In fact… I can't really recall a time I spent relaxing. It's always… fighting… and working. Fighting to help others and protecting my new family. Working on just about anything. My home, my weapons, discovering new technology, new adaptations. I've always found something, someway to keep myself occupied but never, never a time for me to stop and… think. Well, I'm thinking now. What I just did only confirms what I am. I don't need to be that creature inside me to prove it. I am a monster, through and through.

The world… the world begins to deafen around me. I hear voices but they become muffled around me. I can't discern what their saying but it starts off small, quiet voices, then louder, then frantic, and now…

"KYYYLLLLE!"

I move.

* * *

 _Minutes earlier…_

Everyone stares as the kid a little while ago, who they all thought had simply gotten into a scrap that left him hurt, was just about to blow the head off someone else barely a minute ago. He disabled him of his gun with barely any effort and then proceeded to threaten and shove said gun down the boisterous kid earlier. Neither of them were even in their late 20's and yet one was about to lose his life, and the other was about to take it. For now they just watch as Marcus returns to his seat and simply stares at the fire. Katherine, Carlos, the dog and Bill walk up to the kid and warily look at him but he barely pays any attention to them as he continues to stare into the red hot fire.

It's only when Bill walks further up that Carlos and Katherine ease up. However when she turns to look at her son, she finds he's missing. "Kyle?" She calls his name in an attempt to find him. "Kyle?" She calls again and quickly looks around.

"What's wrong?" Carlos asks concerned at her frantic movements.

"I can't find Kyle. He's gone." She quickly explains and points to his little spot where all his toys and collection is at. Indeed, he has wandered off.

"Oh shit. C'mon, let's look around. He can't have gotten far." Carlos quickly fast walks elsewhere to try to find the child.

"Kyle! Kyle!" She yells out his name with her hands cupped around her mouth. Soon, others of their little community group begin searching around for him as well. Katherine begins to breathe a bit more rapidly as she begins turning in ever which direction to see where he went. "Kyyyyllle!"

"Hey! Over here!" All heads turn around, minus one, to the entrance of the alleyway into the street. One of their own, a burly man waves over Katherine and points down to the street. Her eyes widen as she sees her son walking into the street, a small ball having rolled from his collection and stopped on the curb on the other side.

"Kyle!" she calls him in joy at seeing him before she runs after him. She and a few others, including Carlos, run too and stop on the sidewalk. Kyle has grabbed the ball and slowly makes his way back to the others.

*Screech*

To the right, they hear tires peeling out and Katherine watches in horror as a car begins speeding and swerving along the road. Not caring at all about staying to one lane. Kyle for his part, stops and stares like a deer in the headlights at the automobile heading straight for him. "Kyle!" Katherine calls out to her son in alarm. When he doesn't move, she tries to go forward but the burly man stops her from going out into the danger. "No! No no nooo! Let me go! Let me go! My son!" She desperately tries to go but its too late.

The cars distance is only a few yards and not stopping.

"KYYYLLLLE!"

* * *

My eyes shoot open. My breath hitches. The pain is unbearable.

But I move.

* * *

A large gust of wind hits everyone around. A black blur speeds past the group on the sidewalk as they can only watch the car head for the kid in the middle of the street without any intention of stopping.

Only… now theirs two.

In the moment, for a second, everyone stares as almost out of nowhere, the new kid they just met hours ago, suddenly appears right in front of Kyle. A firm concentrated but pained look is on his face as he stares down the car heading right for them. Before anyone can react, tell him to run, get out of the way or anything like that, they can only watch as he pulls his right arm back. When he pulls it as far back as he can, his muscles visibly tighten as he curves his arm upwards. He lets out a loud groan as he brings his arm in an overhead punch just as the car closes the distance on him. As the car rolls right up to him, the kid right behind him, his fist comes down right onto the hood of the car. To any normal person, punching the hood of a speeding car would barely leave a dent and leave the person a bloody heap in the pavement or on the hood of the car.

*CRRRIIIIINNNNKK*

He… is not most people. The metal and framework of the car crumples without any resistance from his punch and instead of the car crashing into him, the front half of the car is torn downwards from the attack and stops almost on a dime. The rest of the car though, keeps going. The car is lifted off its back wheels and goes tumbling through the air over the two in the street. Marcus remains in his stance but Kyle watches with fascination as the vehicle that was heading for him is now flipping through the air above him.

*CRASH*

It stops moving when it lands on the ground and slams into a nearby light pole. The cars alarms goes off from the sheer damage done it but besides that and the hiss coming from the damaged engine of the car, no one says or does anything for a few seconds in utter awe and disbelief at what they just saw.

"Kyle!" The kids mother runs up to her son and embraces him, kissing him and almost crying at how close she almost lost her son. One of the others also heads over to the car to check on the occupant and manages to open the door.

*Clink*

A bottle of vodka falls out the door and lands on the ground before rolling on the ground, confirming the suspicion that the driver was drunk. In fact he's not dead. Just bruised and passed out.

"Kat! Is Kyle okay?" Carlos runs up and quickly checks to see if the mother and son are alright.

"Yes, yes he's fine. He… he wouldn't be if… if…" She chokes out before looking up to see Marcus still staying in his downward punching stance. They stare at him for a bit in confusion before he slowly stands back to his full height. His hand is full on red and the pain flares up around his entire body. Ever so slowly and sluggishly, he begins walking but he shows to have much difficulty in doing so. His steps are mismatched, his feet almost drag on and he's swaying from left to right. Even so, he still heads for the alleyway entrance where everyone else is clustered around. As he gets closer to them though, they all begin parting like the red sea as he trudges past them all. Their continues to stay on him as he walks, a million questions going through their minds but there is one that is on everyone's mind:

How did he do that?

No one asks though as he looks to be in pain. Quite obvious considering what he just did but for the wrong reason that everyone's thinking. Before he makes it to his little bed spot, he collapses just before making it. He lands on his hands and knees, letting out a hiss of pain as he's slowly starting to lose consciousness from the pain. He manages to crawl forward and slowly pull himself on it before pulling the covers over him. His body shivers as he curls towards the fires direction and his eyes drift close. Just before he falls asleep, he faintly hears footsteps come up to him and steps in his view and crouches. He hears a voice one last time before he's out.

"You say you're a monster… but what monster saves a kid like that?"

* * *

 _Hours later…_

How long? That's the question I ask myself as I slowly return to the world of the living. Very slowly my eyes drift open and I am no longer greeted by the darkness of the area but everything is lit up more. My body feels like it was thrown through the ringer but the pain has subsided… somewhat. _'Damn. I can't stay here too long. I have to get back.'_ I think and slowly begin to sit up. While I'm trying to push myself up, I notice the dog from before seems to have chosen next to me as its place to sleep. When I fully sit up does he rouse from his sleep and look at me. When I fully sit up, I'm hunched forward as I am drowsy like crazy. I even almost sway sitting down. Still, I reach into my pocket and pull out Lapis. _'I have to get back… for her.'_ With my goal in mind, I take a second to collect myself.

"Ahhh, your awake." I look to my side to see Bill walking up to me. "Good morning."

"Morning?" I question in a slight scraggly voice, my throat a bit dry. I take a look around to see that while the area has been lit up more, it is most likely from the sun having moved into the sky. It's different though because everywhere around is sort of in grey color hue. A fog has rolled into the city. I also notice back down the alleyway into the street, some police cars and a tow truck are there.

"Yep. You've been out for quite awhile. After your little… stunt last night, the police arrived and went about the area as normal."

My breath hitches as the idea of the police being so close to me when I'm still weak is something I don't want to deal with right now.

"Relax. They don't know about you." Bill says as he notices my distress. He elaborates more. "The guy was drunk so they assumed the damage done to the car was him slamming into the light pole. They don't suspect anyone else."

"Okay… good." I let out a breath of air. After having to deal with the assassins from before and practically having to kill them all over the city, I don't want to take the chance of them tying me into the whole mess. At least not now.

"That… brings up another question I have." Bill asks. From the way he asks it and the sudden shift in mood, I can tell I'm not going to like it. "Now… to be frank, what you did last night was not normal." I look down, not bothering to look at him. "Never can anyone ever do what you just did… and yet you did." He leans forward to look at me more directly. "What you did was impossible… and yet you did it almost effortlessly." He lays his elbows on his knees and interlocks his fingers in front of his face. "Care to explain, if you'd be willing?"

"…" I just sit there quietly for a bit as he asks. After a bit, I slowly look up at him. "There are things you don't know. Lots of things lots of people don't know about." I turn back to looking at the ground. "It's one of the reasons why you shouldn't get close to me. Less you get in way over your head." I warn him. I was kind of hoping to not do any of my powers or special abilities in the time I've been here. Wasn't sure I could do anything what with me being so… broken. I didn't really have a choice so forcing it was extremely painful. Almost as bad as other of the most severe injuries I've incurred in the past. Still, that is only a minor thing compared to the possibility of most humans finding out Gem life exists, and the technology they have, significance in history and so on. It's one thing with the Iron Kings, their criminals so its not like their going to go to the police or the government with this information, but its another with regular civilians.

Loose lips sink ships.

"Hmmm." Bill hums in thought at my words but doesn't comment further on it. Soon though, we aren't left in awkward silence for much longer as a small group of people walk up to us with Carlos leading. "How'd the search go?" Bill asks them when he notices them close enough.

"Could have been better." He replies half heartedly and drops a tattered bag filled with a bunch of stuff while the others drop carrying worn old tarps and old blankets.

Bill looks to me. "Sometimes we decide to send people out to look for stuff that no one else wants but we can use. Old can's and newspapers to take to the recycling center for a few extra dollars, blankets people don't use anymore to keep us warm, tarps, poles and old wood pieces for makeshift shelters. Stuff like that." He finishes explaining. I give a small nod in understanding.

"Although we weren't able to go too far out. The police practically have the city on lockdown after the chase that was going on yesterday." I tense up at what Carlos says. "Even with the fog rolling in, we only got so far." The others of his group nod in confirmation. "Weird thing is we found an abandoned car too."

' _Car?'_ Now that gets my attention, making me perk up and stare directly at Carlos but he continues to address Bill.

"A car? You know we can't take that." Bill says.

"I know I know. Just wanted to let you know. Seeing as it wasn't there before. The police haven't picked it up yet even though I'm pretty sure it was part of all the shooting that was going on. Covered in bullet holes and nearly all the windows were broken."

Before he can react, I am suddenly on my feet and next to him. He looks at me uncomfortably at my close proximity. "Where?"

"What?" He asks for me to clarify.

I relax a bit more and calmly ask him. "Where… is this car?" Relief begins to flood me at the idea of finding my car. _'It's about time I get home. And this fog is the best thing for me.'_

* * *

"Over here." Carlos says and leads us. He, a couple members of his group, Bill, the dog and I walk down a couple streets to look for what he found. I still have some problems moving fully but I manage well enough. Since its only a few streets over we didn't take too long in walking, and because of the fog covering the city we didn't draw too much attention by anyone. "Around this corner." We continue to walk and as soon as we pass the corner of the building he was talking about, we see it. I freeze as I spot my car nestled deep in the alleyway. During the night, after the explosion, I was just in so much pain and shock from everything that happened in such a short time that I couldn't really recall what happened. I didn't remember where I stopped or even where I was walking. I was just walking and moving to just get away as fast as I can. Collapsing in another alleyway was not what I wanted but didn't really have a choice.

Now as I lay my eyes on my ride, a veritable relief floods me. "Man. That thing is wrecked." One of the others comments at the state of my ride. He's not wrong though. It is almost completely trashed from the amount of abuse it suffered. Nearly the entire body has dents where bullets weren't able to penetrate the upgraded frame but some holes here and there indicate some did. The windows are almost completely smashed and broken through all over and the paint with bits of metal looks to be melted. Slowly I begin walking over to it as everyone casually mills around it. The dog sniffs me a few time before he walks over to the car and begins inspecting it too. "Theirs no way this thing is running."

"Yeah. It was probably part of that chase that happened yesterday before it was ditched." Carlos comments and places his hand on the hood of the car. "Ahh!" He hisses and pulls his hand back. "What the hell? Man this thing is hot. Almost like it was on fire."

"Hehe." I chuckle briefly at the correct answer but he was being sarcastic. They don't hear me though as I walk over to driver side door.

"How are you planning to get in?" One of the randoms that joined us asks. I reach in through the broken window and open the door without possibly burning myself on the frame. "Oh."

I slowly sit inside before taking a long hard look at the interior. The memories of before come back to me but I don't linger long as I reach to the floor and grabs the keys that were dropped. "So, you wanna tell us why your so interested in this car?" Bill asks as he walks to just outside the door.

"I'm interested…" I begin to say and plug in the ignition key. "Because its my car."

*Vrrrroooooommm*

Almost everyone jumps back as the engine turns on and they hear the roar of it. "Holy crap! It still runs?" Someone asks but I don't know and I don't care. My ride is back in my possession. The fog is nice and thick over the town. This is my only chance to head home without the police finding me.

"So, that was the fight you were in?" Bill asks, referring to the chase mentioned before.

I give him a tired hard look. "I've made a lot of enemies." After a quick look around the inside, as well a making sure my car is well enough to drive, I find my Beretta on the floor of the passenger side. After grabbing it and tucking it in my jacket, I grab the steering wheel. "This is where we part ways. Thank you for your help, but its time I get going." I go to shift it into gear to reverse but some grabs my arm to stop me for a second. A quick look shows Bill giving me a concerned look.

"Remember what I said before. Theirs enough suffering in this world. Don't add to it." We stare at each other for a few more seconds until he lets go and steps back. Everyone else steps back too so I don't accidentally hit them.

*Bark*Bark*

Almost. The dog from earlier jumps a little so I can see him out the passenger window. "Looks like someone's taking a liking to you." Bill comments with a smile.

"What? Seriosuly?" I ask incredulously. True to what he says, the dog seems to like me since it wants in through the door.

He nods and I look back to see the dog peering at me over the window. "You know, if you have enemies, it'd be a good idea to have a guard dog around. Your good, but I don't think you can beat an animals' instincts." Bill makes a very good point. If I'm going to be dealing with enemies possibly attacking my home, it would do well to have him as protection.

I begin to think about it but as I look behind me, I spot the slightly bullet riddled holed toy I and Lapis won for Steven. My mind is made up as I let out a long sigh before looking at the dog. "Fuck it." I finally say and reach over and unlock the door. He gets off the door and bounds in when its open enough. After closing the door, he sits down in place and I back up into the street.

"Oh hey!" Carlos runs up and gets my attention. "Kat never got to thank you. You know, for saving her son."

"I figured she would. Tell her, 'take care'… All of you." I offer to him with a small smile. He nods and pats the dog before stepping back Before I take off though, I turn to the others that had all came by. Some of them wave me off, Carlos offers a small smile and a single wave, while Bill gives me a slow nod. I nod back to him, and I go. The fog is still present but its slowly lifting out of the city. I need to get out of here sooner rather than later. As I drive down the winding streets, I pull Lapis out of my pocket and lay her on the passenger seat next to the dog. He looks at it curiously before looking at me. "Listen, I'm not sure exactly what we're going to be. But if anything happens to me, you get her to someone I care very deeply about. You're going to be my ace in the hole should things get troublesome against my enemies, understand?" I'm talking to a dog about this, but you know what I'm hoping he'll at least understand somewhat what I'm requesting. He barks nonetheless with what I hope is understanding. We delve into silence as I wind down the various streets until I get a vague idea of where the exit and road is to home. I am on the road cresting the hill overlooking Beach City and since I'm not longer under the threat of getting pulled over, as much, I relax a little. Or as best I can considering the pain is flaring up in me again. However that doesn't detract from the idea that suddenly pops up. "Ace?" I look over at the dog next to me. "Your name is now Ace. That good?"

*Bark!*

"I'll take that as a yes." Now that my new dog has been named, I focus back on the road heading home. My thoughts drift to everyone else, especially those who were in the city with me. _'Pearl… Steven… Greg…'_ My fists tighten on the steering wheel, regardless of the pain. _'I hope your alright.'_

The trip back is long, painful, and I am riddled with thoughts of doubt the whole way.

* * *

Later, back in Beach City, or more specifically on the outskirts or so of Beach City, everyone gathers around in front of the barn that Lapis and Peridot have taken to using as their home. Currently, everyone of the Crystal Gems and family members are there, waiting as an air of worry looms over everyone as to the whereabouts of their missing members.

Greg and Amethyst sit at the picnic table while Steven paces nearby back and forth in the same lane spot. Garnet remains stoic and still as she watches in the far-off distance where he is supposed to return. Peridot is sitting on another table nearby, laying out an assortment of weapons she knows Marcus and left in secret spots as a precaution. Their mostly pistols and single-handed weapons but each and every one is ready and able to be used Marcus's second Beretta remains on the corner right next to her own Colt revolver. After the group from Empire City came back, Pearl immediately explained to what happened and the possible enemies they may be dealing with. That's why Peridot has as many weapons available for them to use and Pearl is standing on top of the barn, her Dragunov sniper rifle in hand and carefully scanning the horizon. Whether to see if the cars belonging to their enemies followed them, or the remaining two members are on their way.

"Anything?!" Steven calls out to Pearl on top of the barn.

She does one last scan before lowering the weapon and sighing. "No." She sadly states.

Steven looks down at the news and resumes pacing before looking at Garnet. "Garnet? Do you see anything with your future vision?"

"Hmmm." She hums for a second and begins to think on what she sees. "I see some. Paths that are good, that are bad, and some I can't really tell."

"What do you mean?"

"Some of these ones I know they're there but I don't have all the pieces, so I can't make an accurate guess as to what's going to happen." She carefully explains to him what she can. This doesn't reassure him a lot though as he looks down again. She places her hand on his shoulder, making him look at her and offer a reassuring smile. "But he always comes back. For better for worse. We just have to be patient, okay?"

"… Okay." He feels a little better. She goes back to meditating while he goes back to pacing.

Meanwhile Greg has his chin laying the table while he has his arms covering his head. "Yo, Gregory." Amethyst playfully says to the distressed human. "You okay man?" She asks once she notices his down demeanor.

He doesn't immediately answer her. He just continues to stare downwards before slowly looking at her. "We were shot at, Amethyst. All this time, its always been just… Gem business. Just stuff you guys do with Gem stuff. I'm not as worried about it because theirs three of you who know all about it, and all of you are always there ready to help Steven." He finishes saying with a small smile before it turns into a frown. "But this… this is humans we are dealing with. This time, I know exactly how… cruel and dangerous they can be. How dangerous guns can be." His hands curl onto his head and he presses his fingers onto his bald head. "And they fired at us Amethyst! They shot at my son." He quickly lowers his voice, so as not to gain the attention of his son on this topic. Steven is still in his own little world as he continues to pace. "I can't help against both gun-toting humans and Gem stuff at all. And what's worse, we only have one person that deals with the human side… but he's still a kid!" He frustratingly says to Amethyst. She continues to sit there and listen to the distraught human as he continues to voice his worries to his friend. "And he's missing. How can he protect us, but most of all Steven, when he can't even protect himself?" Greg asks out loud. He's not really asking the question to Amethyst but more so just speaking out loud.

The purple gem remains silent for a few seconds before she reaches over on the table and grabs a snack that's going to be quickly devoured. "True… but he protected you guys, didn't he? That's what we do when we bring Steven on missions or we know their danger. We make sure the little guy is safe no matter what. From what you told us, sounds like he just that." She finishes explaining and tears open a bag of chips and begins scarfing them down.

Greg stares at her for a few more seconds before staring back at the table. "Yeah, he did." He quietly mutters to himself. He's not back to fully being better… but it's a step closer.

"Anything?!" They both look at Steven as he calls out to Pearl again, impatient but with good reason.

"Nothing. Wait…" She says first but as she slowly scans the horizon again, she spots movement. "Hold on I see something." She informs them. This gets their attention as everyone gets up.

"What is it?!" Steven calls out while Greg comes up to his son and gets ready to grab him if its trouble.

"Is it our enemies?!" Peridot asks loudly as she jumps onto the table, scattering a few guns out of the neat lineup she had placed them in in favor of being high up and holding her revolver in one hand and Marcus's Beretta in the other.

"No no. It's too small." She replies, alleviating some of them of the idea of enemies but she continues to try to get a good glimpse of the moving target. "It's really small… and… I think…" Her look of concentration turns to disappointment as she lowers the weapon. "False alarm. It's just a dog."

Some of them let out groans of disappointment and go back to doing their own thing. Peridot sits back down before letting out a loud groan at her action, having messed up her careful placement earlier. Thing is though, while everyone doesn't pay the contact any attention, Steven's pacing comes to a slow halt as he notices the four legged animal getting bigger and bigger. Soon he stands there staring as a german shepard dog runs directly up to him. "Oh. Hey boy. What are you doing here?" He asks the animal. Even though he won't get a verbal answer, he can't help it. The dog though nudges Steven with his head into his chest. "What's wrong?" He asks at the slightly distressed dog before noticing something about him. "What's that in your mouth?" He asks and as he motions to the animals mouth, the jaws open and releases the slightly wet object into his hands.

To say Steven is surprised would be an understatement. Right there in his hand is the cracked blue Gem belonging to none other than one of their two missing friends: Lapis Lazuli.

He stands there, staring with his mouth agape and eyes wide at seeing what's in his hand. A variety of emotions run through his head as he tries to figure this out. Not to mention, that the Gem that this belongs to has been forced back into her gem… and its cracked.

It's only when the dog nudges him that he snaps out of it.

"GUUUUYYYSSS!" He yells out as loudly as he can. Like a flip switched, everyone was one second calm and patiently waiting, next everyone springs into action, jumping to their feet and speeding over to Steven.

"Steven! What's wrong?" Pearl asks, landing softly next to Steven after jumping off the barns roof.

"What is it?" Garnet makes it next, her gauntlets appearing and ready just in case.

"Did the dog attack you?" Amethyst asks next as she, Greg and Peridot join the others. With his back to them, he remains standing there still before he slowly turns around and reveals to everyone what he has in his possession. The effect is immediate as everyone lays their eyes on the cracked blue gem. "Whoa." Amethyst mutters, stunned.

"L… Lapis?" Peridot meekly says the gems name in disbelief, drops her guns and walks towards Steven. She takes the gem and stares at it, unsure of what to actually do but just hold her. While she remains silent, the others start asking questions.

"That's… that's Lapis's Gem… and its cracked!" Pearl exclaims loudly, her rifle going slack in her arms. "But where's… where's Marcus?! Where is he?" She asks desperately as she looks all around but finds nothing.

"This dog." They look at the dog next to Steven, who is still sitting there waiting. He cocks his head to the side in curiosity as he sees all the attention focused on him. "He's the one that brought her."

"This… dog?" Pearl asks confused on how this random animal had Lapis Lazuli's gem and brought it straight to Steven. She's still confused about the whole thing but if this animal has come close to their missing friend in anyway, then that's a lead she needs to follow post haste. Quickly looking around, she slings her rifle on her back and quickly grabs Marcus's pistol laying on the ground. "Here. Can you take us to who this belongs to?" She asks the dog as she holds the gun up to him, held flat against both her open palms. Something she has learned about when she did some research after Steven brought home Lion is that most animals on earth have a much better sense of smell than both Gems and humans. As it stands, the canine species is one of the very best in that regard. With hope welling in her, she lets the animal sniff all over the gun for a second before it lets out a few barks and bounds off in the direction it came from. "I think that animal knows where Marcus!" Pearl quickly tells everyone.

"You four, stay here and watch her. Pearl! Let's move." Garnet goes into full leader mode and orders everyone to do. Without any forms of confirmation besides some head nods, she and Pearl speed off after the dog.

Once Pearl and Garnet are gone, the others look down at the blue gem held by Peridot and stare at it. "Oh boy." Greg mutters.

"That's not pretty." Amethyst hisses as she sees the large crack going through it. "And I would know, it happened to me before." She recalls the time her gem cracked from falling off the cliff.

"Oh Lapis." Steven worriedly moans as he takes Lapis back into his own hands. "What happened to the two of you?" He quietly asks her. Because she still hasn't reformed, they don't get an answer back.

"Why hasn't she generated her physical form by now?" Peridot asks.

"Could it be because of that crack she's got?" Greg surmises, pointing at the clear as day crack she has.

"Maybe." Amethyst mumbles. "We should probably take her to Roses fountain right now."

While the others talk about that being the option, Steven continues to stare at Gem in his hands, his thoughts on… other means to heal. _'I could. I could heal her. I could heal them both. I have the power to… only…'_ His eyes slowly glide over to his dad, seeing him talking to Peridot and Amethyst. "Well," He begins to say and licks his hand, "It has been awhile."

* * *

Meanwhile, the other two gems waste no time in chasing after the canine that's leading them. While a normal human would have some difficulty in keeping up with the dog and its four-legged strides, the gems are not as deterred and easily keep pace with the beast. What's worrying to them is just how far they are going. Already they have cleared the grassy plains that surrounded the barn and are traveling along the road going out of the city. It's the same road Steven, Greg and Pearl took when they came back to the city and made a beeline for the beach house. When morning came and Marcus nor Lapis returned, they stayed at the barn to be ready in case their friends returned… or their enemies followed them.

Even so, now they are focused entirely on where this animal is taking them, as far-fetched it may be he can lead them to him.

Their efforts and gamble bare fruit as they stop in place. While they stand there in the middle of the road, the dog continues running up before it heads to the driver side door, barking and scratching at the door to get at its new unresponsive owner. The car itself has either finally given up, or the driver did because the vehicle has crashed into the ditch on the side of the road, the front bent and metal gnarled after it crashed into a telephone pole. Even the engine lets out a small bit of white smoke from the impact while the driver is slumped over.

"Oh no." Pearl whispers in worry, snapping the both of them out of it. They head over to the driver side door and find Marcus unconscious. "Marcus!" She cries out in worry.

"Stand back." Garnet warns her, making Pearl and the dog back before she tears the door off the frame of the car, not caring that the vehicle belongs to him but more so wanting to get at their friend now. It looked about ready to fall off anyway. They stare in silent stunned surprise as they see him. But he looks far worse than they would have thought would happen to him. His clothes are dirty, torn in some places, ripped and burned nearly all over. Even his own skin has scabbed over small cuts here and there but it's the small raw red spots on his body that they can that makes them worry, indicative of burns. From the state his vehicle is in, it was not a battle in his favor. Pearl carefully grabs Marcus and drags him out of the vehicle. She pulls him away far enough from the vehicle and lays him down gently on the grass. "How is he?" Garnet asks her.

Pearl quickly begins assessing his wounds but to her confusion she doesn't find any bullet or stab wounds on his body. "He looks alright but his breathing is shallow." She presses her fingers to his throat. "I have a pulse but its weak. I don't see some bruises but nothing on his chest that indicates internal bleeding." She quickly lists off what she sees and finds. "I hope its not something to do with his mind again. I would hate to have to deal with that monster again. Hmmm… what do you think Garnet?" Pearls asks her fellow Crystal Gem.

"… Pearl…" At her name being called, she looks at Garnet, seeing the fusion stare stunned as she looks at the side of Marcus. More specifically, his Gem.

Pearl lets out barely a cry as tears almost begin to form on her eyes as she sees what has him hurt.

His cracked Gem. "Oh Marcus." She sadly says to the unconscious hybrid. For a gem to have their life force cracked, it isn't a pleasant experience but the most it would do is disrupt their physical forms and prevent them from doing certain tasks or use some of their abilities.

Marcus however, is not all Gem but human as well. The Gems still have questions every now and again on how it means for Steven and Marcus to be what they are. A cracked gem on a hybrid… that's something they have no idea what it means. His injuries haven't healed… so he can't.

"We need to move. Now." After staring at the unconscious person for a time, Garnet speaks in a soft worried tone filled with determination. He was gone overnight, but in that time a lot happened to him.

Pearl sniffs as she nods, ready to get moving instead of having increasing levels of worry force her down. "Yes. We have to get him back to the others." She reaches forward and pulls him into her arms before jumping away back towards the barn.

Garnet watches her go for a second before turning to the one that led them straight to him in the first place. The dog stands there, staring at her curiously. "C'mon boy, let's go." She waves him to follow and tails her fellow Gem.

Ace happily pants and barks before following after her.

* * *

Darkness. That's all I've been seeing for a while now. Not the darkness I saw when I was dealing with the monster inside of me. I can't see myself but the whole thing is just… numb. I can't feel, see, or touch anything but just my mind tells me in a way. It's really weird but for some reason I'm not panicking. Somehow I just have this feeling I'm alright.

In fact, I feel incredible and the pains I was feeling lately are completely gone.

Out of the darkness, a bright light begins to appear. _'Wait, am I dead? Did I die? Was this purgatory?'_ My thoughts and theories are cut as I start to see the sky. Feeling comes back to me and I feel the soft grass under me. _'Okay good. Not dead. Just… waking up.'_ As my eyes slowly open, my vision is blurred a lot and I can barely hear anything. I can hear some voices but its hard to make out anything. My body is a little stiff but thankfully, the constant feeling of pain is completely gone, making let out a sigh of relief. A figure enters my vision and she looks frantic… and blue. Squinting my eyes bit, the figure comes into focus.

The amount of relief I feel is like nothing I've felt before because I soon recognize the figure as Lapis. "Lapis." I can barely hear myself utter the words but she can, if her changed expression from worry to relief is anything to go by, as well as the smile she sports that mirrors my own. As soon as I can see more clearly, I begin to see that her form has changed, only a little bit but still.

Lapis's new look consists of her same blue dress the straps over the shoulders of her dress are a bit thicker now and she now has sleeves running the length of her arms. There are also holes where her elbows are and the sleeves end at fingerless gloves where the fabric would curl between her fingers and that's it. Each digit is free but besides all that though, there's nothing else new to her appearance. She also doesn't look wrong, or messed up. She's beautiful.

She hugs me on the ground tightly and I somewhat expect the pain to flare up but nothing. I'm alright. More faces join in an I see that all the other Crystal Gems are here and are happy as well.

' _I'm home. I'm back.'_ I return Lapis's hug and close my eyes as I hold her tightly. _'We're back… we're safe.'_

* * *

 **Whelp, it's about time I came back.**

 **Just wanna say I'm sorry everyone for the long wait. For those of you who haven't seen the AU notes on my other stories, for awhile I wasn't really feeling like writing for a time and just barely put any effort into it. So that's why things took longer than what I originally intended. Good news is I'm starting to get my flow back so hopefully I can crank out a ton more work soon. As for this chapter, I kind of wanted to touch up on just how Marcus was pissed and angry about everything.**

 **I'm pretty sure I captured the feeling quite well with the way how he threatened that jerk, who had threatened him first. With the way how Marcus has been various humans punching bag for awhile now, I feel it natural that his psyche is starting to… deteriorate. Fortunately, some nice people who have also been hurt by life saved him from taking an innocent person's life. An idiot's life but one that surely doesn't deserve to die.**

 **As for Lapis's new look, I didn't want to do too much to change her since as the show has done, she and Peridot most likely will get new designs when they reform. It's simple but I hope its enough to make it interesting. And as you may have noticed, I may have given Steven his healing powers earlier than what the show did… buuuuuuuut I don't think anyone will be too angry about it. This just means a certain corrupted Gem will appear sooner. Not sure if I'll have anything planned for the episode itself or I'll simply have it mentioned in a short explanation. Even so, in a few chapters things are going to come to a particularly powerful set of events I have planned.**

 **As for his new pet, I figured he might need an animal companion to help him out when needed, after all look at Steven. Marcus has been around the kid so much its no surprise Ace was able to find him.**

 **You know, speaking of new designs, the episodes… I was not disappointed by what they showed us. Finally, we got to see White Diamond and damn was she… wow. Just the air around her appearance was intimidating and just how she talked spoke volumes of pain from what I can tell. I've got some ideas on how to make this work but holy crap I'm excited for what the show has for us next. Steven was just dropped on Pink Diamonds throne away from everyone else. How they're going to go on from this is just… crazy. The ideas keep coming everyone so as long as I don't have anymore spontaneous delays in writing, things are going to get interesting.**

 **Here are the reviews:**

 **ChimaTigon:** An interesting idea. Not sure if I'll use it for anything but I'll keep it in mind.

 **BakaBakaChagama:** Glad you liked it. I do what I can and I'm sorry for the long wait. I'll do what I can to keep things interesting as they progress.

 **Grimlock987:** Because he pissed off some people before and even though he has some blackmail on them, it looks like some just don't care and want him dead faster before he can use said dirt.

 **Cf96:** Well, if that weren't the case then the story wouldn't be as interesting as it has been now would it? Even so, he's not going to take anything lying down that's for sure.

 **Light Seeker 001 – 007:** I'll check it out. I haven't really found a song that would be best for Marcus to sing at any point but I'll see how it feel about it. And yeah, it's definitely interesting having my brother how he is but everything's managing good so far.

 **NJred2000:** That would be something. I have dabbled in ideas for Marcus to gain a human rival or possible other humans to help him deal with his King problem, but with what I have planned things may not exactly go how you think. As for him singing, haven't found a song that really speaks or seems like something that is him.

 **Berserk117:** Interesting setups. Here's what I think:  
Marcus vs Deadpool: Deadpool  
Marcus vs Deathstroke: Marcus  
Marcus vs Guts (Berserk): Guts  
Marcus vs Master Chief (Halo): Master Chief  
Marcus vs Meta (RVB): Marcus  
Marcus vs Samurai Jack: Marcus

Exactly how who wins who and how, I'll leave that up to some of you guys to decide. Marcus is good, but he can't beat everyone. Plus I'm a little biased to some of these characters so that can't be helped.

 **Ifsomethingchanged:** It's such a relief to hear that. It's always nice to hear anyone compliment my work like that and I truly appreciate it. Hopefully I continue to make things as amazing and beautiful.

 **TonyShadowmist:** They both have been through the wringer huh? Don't worry, the answer will be for sure given soon.

 **MuchoDinero:** That is a definite possibility. I was thinking of something else for an Amethyst/Marcus fusion weapon but I think it wouldn't be too hard to include a variation of the Blades of Chaos into the mix. Something to think about in the future that's for sure. Thank you for your opinion.

 **WeirdLiesMatter (Ch.11):** Ha.

 **EeveeTheImmortal:** Then I have succeeded.

 **Alphaprince0 (Ch.10):** Huh, never thought of something like that. I'll think about it.

 **Anti (Ch.1):** I was wondering when someone would notice. I have for tooooo long. ( **Ch.11):** Yep. **(Ch.16):** That is always a possibility… Hmmmm…

 **Joseph Fenech:** Eventually. I'm not stopping at all but it always depends on my mood at times. Sucks but that's how it goes.

 **(All "Guests"):** Sorry everyone for the long wait. I couldn't very well personally message all of you when the next chapter was going to come out and I think it would have been kind of a frustrating move to simply put out an announcement chapter just to let you all know. I feel like that would be more hurtful than helpful. I've felt the same way when I'm waiting on other stories when I see the notification but it's simply an update chapter, so don't really expect small chapters like those to pop up.

 **Just to let you all know, I'm thinking of making a new story official. Not gonna say what it is, just gonna leave it as a surprise so keep an eye out on my stories list for those of you not following me personally but still curious.**

 **Also since theirs been different stuff happening to the internet in the past months and as of late, not to mention their have been occasional problems here on this site as well, I've decided to go ahead and make some new accounts on other fanfiction type websites just in case something happens out of my control.**

 **I have made accounts on** **Archive of Our Own** **,** **QuoteV,** **and** **FictionPad** **all under the same name Vendicor. So far nothing has been posted on them, eventually I may post what I have here on these sites as well but for now things will be barren there. In fact, FictionPad is supposed to have a function where you can upload your work here on this site to there with a few clicks of some buttons and name typings. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be working for me and from past postings I've noticed, this isn't the first time. I'm going to assume that since this site has been doing some update things I believe to counter some review bots I think it was, the function isn't working. I'm not too hung up on it so maybe after a couple months I'll try again before resorting to contacting someone.**

 **In any case, thank you all for your continued support and want for me to update. I wish I could give dates as to when I will update but unfortunately, I cannot. Go ahead everyone do what you wish, fave, follow, review, or not, it's your choice. Have fun reading everyone but most of all, have a great day.**


	71. 69 Monster Reunion

I can't even begin to describe how relieved I am to be home. It may have been barely a day since we went to Empire City, got ambushed and was nearly taken down before finding the opportunity to finally return home. I have to admit the whole thing completely took me off guard but at the very least, I am happy we're back and safe.

' _But we almost weren't.'_

… I mentally sigh at the thoughts. While yes we are safe, we very well could have not been. So close we could have been killed and the injuries… those injuries are not going to heal so easily. I absentmindedly scratch my gem that was cracked. My god it felt like my whole body was being slowly torn apart while I was awake. The times I tried to go to sleep were mostly from me passing out from the pain. Not to mention my powers and abilities. Using them at ease was out of the question and the moment when I saved that kid… god damn I felt like my whole body was going to rip right in half soon after. I know I passed out from the pain after that but the rest was all I needed to finally get the hell home, with my new companion no less.

Speaking of, it seems the others took to Ace really well. Well, the Gems are indifferent about it but are grateful for the canines actions, especially since I had passed out on the side of the road into a pole. Steven was especially ecstatic about having a new animal around us and was playing around with him for a bit until he figured something else needed to be done as soon as possible.

"Why did you agree to this?" Pearl asks Garnet.

"I lost a battle of will."

"Why exactly are we here again?" I ask. After Steven healed Lapis and I, we went back to our respective homes. I wanted to ask Lapis to come back to my place as a bit of overprotectiveness started to make itself known to me, but Peridot was pretty ecstatic and relieved to have her back so I kept my mouth shut. Still, we were happy nonetheless to be home and took the time to relax. At least I tried to but when the next day rolled around, Steven was pretty happy and excited for something for some reason but I missed the explanation at the beginning because as soon as I got to the beach house they were going into the temple so I tagged along. Now here we are in the burn room surrounded by all the bubbles of the captured corrupted Gems. I have to admit, I never came here before as it never occurred to me to actually look at it but wow is it something else. Not to mention looking at the number of Gems here, just goes to show just how many of these things the Crystal Gems were capturing long before I ever started. While we're here, I left Ace in Steven's house with Lion. They seem pretty alright with each other to be honest. Actually, at first they simply stared at each other for a good long until Lion decided to just lay down and rest, followed by Ace right next to him.

"Here it is!" Steven yells, breaking me from my thoughts and using his floating abilities, he grabs a bubble that seems vaguely familiar. "Gotcha!"

Pearl walks up and pears at the gem in question in his hands. "Is that…"

"It's Centipeetle." He answers. Now the memories kind of come back. I remember he had befriended a corrupted gem monster and tried to make it a friend to us all. He was starting to go somewhere with the creature until she got crushed and Steven needed to bubble her. Of course, at the time I was laid out in bed after I was nearly killed by Sugilite so I only met the gem briefly. "If I can help any of them, I want to help her first."

Amethyst summons her whip before reeling in another bubble but instead of a gem, this one is filled with a bag of Chaaaaps. "Don't forget these." She gives them to him, who gasps in joy at seeing the food item. _'Why are those here?'_

"Chaaaaps! They're her favorite!." Steven happily states. _'Oh, that's why.'_

"Hm, I wonder if they haven't gone stale in there?" I inquire. The bubbles seal in a gem and prevent them from forming but I'm not sure if it's an energy field thing or a totally sealed environment deal. _'I should experiment with this later on.'_

"Okay. You guys ready?" He asks, which we nod. Me, Amethyst and Pearl get ready to attack with me grabbing onto both my pistols, which I got my second one back from Pearl once I regained consciousness. Steven pops the bubble and soon Centipeetle begins to regenerate into her form.

"Better make it quick Steven!" I quickly inform him as the corrupted gem begins to take on a more monstrous form, as per the usual with them.

"Yeah! Come on dude, do your thing!" Amethyst adds.

"Be careful!" And Pearl warns him. With the four of us ready to help, I don't think theirs anything that we need to worry about.

While regenerating, Steven licks his hand and puts it on Centipeetle's gem. The regeneration form seems to go still for a bit until the new form begins to resemble something closer to human. Soon the glowing stops and we finally get A semi-corrupt form for Centipeetle with humanoid arms and legs.

The Crystal Gems gasp at the new development while I let my arms drop and my guns hang by my sides. "Woah." I mutter in awe. It's not exactly a perfect change from the monstrous appearance but its still better than the straight up corrupted look.

"Is it working?"

Finally, Centipeetle turns around and notices the others us, allowing us to properly see her… beak… claw mouth… thing. "Skreeeeee!" _'…Still… freaky.'_

"It worked!" Seeing as how she no longer looks like she wants to outright eat us, kill us, r spew acid at us for that matter, I'd say this is somewhat in the right direction. Steven goes ahead and grabs the bubble of Chaaaaps.

"Uh, Steven?" Pearl asks as she sees him go over to the gem. I move subtly closer to be ready to help him just in case.

Centipeetle falls on the floor so Steven moves up to her.

"Centi, you're back!" He tries to greet her but he gets a harsh hiss in return. "Whoa! What's the matter? Don't you want some Chaaaps?" He tries to offer the food item but instead Centipeetle angrily squawks at him.

"I don't think that's working." I comment at the attitude from the semi-corrupted gem. She regards me a little as I speak and in fact lets out a pointed hiss. I don't aim fully at her, but my guns are just a flick away from hip firing at her, and this close would mean my aim doesn't have to be deadeye.

"Yeah I don't think she remembers them." Amethyst adds with a sigh.

"Forget the Chaaaaps." Steven goes ahead and pushes the Chaaaaps bubble back into the air. "You remember me, don't you?" He asks her but she doesn't look like she remembers him, if the small confused whine she gives is anything to contribute. "I have a bad feeling this didn't work how I wanted it to work." He sadly says.

I holster my right pistol and pat his shoulder. "Well, she definitely looks a lot better than before. That's gotta account for something." I try to comfort him. This is the most amount of progress we've made when it comes to the corruption so we shouldn't take it likely. He gets a small smile at my words but still looks down, then looks like he has a thought.

"Hmm, possibly not. Oh! Don't go closer!" Pearl begins to say but lightly shouts as Steven begins to move closer to the somewhat confused corrupted gem.

"Maybe she just needs a little extra love!" He tries to come up with a new plan to fix her. While she's still a little confused, Steven kisses Centipeetle's gem but instead of helping her, she begins to squawk in pain.

"Careful!" I quickly pull him back a little and be ready in case she lashes out. Thankfully, she doesn't and instead only seems to focus on covering her gem as she backs up.

"Uh, oops. Ehhehehe." My brother lets out a nervous chuckles at the small blunder.

"Hmm. This is the best we've ever seen it work." Garnet points out and I nod in agreement, my thinking just the same. The most progress we've gotten.

"But it didn't work." Pearl counters, no doubt we don't need progress but a solution to getting the corrupted gems back to the sapient and normal talking selves. "I guess it'll take more than a kiss to heal damage from the Diamonds." She finishes somberly.

"But why? My healing powers are back. I-I should be able to do this." Steven moans in slight confusion at the failure.

"It's alright Steven." Pearl moves closer and attempts to comfort him. "Remember, she's not cracked, she's corrupted, and that's something different, something nearly impossible to describe." She tries to explain to him.

"This has something to do beyond just pain or being broken. This is more… internalized… more like an affliction. A disease or possibly a sever mental disability if I'm going to compare it to human terms." I try to explain as well. Not all mental conditions are inherently dangerous or damning to the person but its still hard to come up with exactly what this in all honestly, which still annoys the hell out of me that I don't know.

"It's sort of like if MC Bear-Bear didn't tear the fabric of his arm, but the fabric of his mind." Garnet tries to also pitch in her own explanation as well.

"Sounds pretty explained to me!" While Amethyst agrees with no one in particular.

"Hmm." Steven isn't fully convinced and lets out a hum at the explanations.

"Steven, I'm impressed with your ability to bring the Centipeetle this far, but it's time to let her rest again." She sadly tells Steven before looking at the purple gem. "Amethyst…"

The purple gem needs no further explaining as she knows what Garnet is implying. I know what she means too but I'm kind of hoping no. "Uh, sure. I'll poof her." She says as she pulls out her whip.

"Ohhhh, aaaaaah." Meanwhile Centipeetle squawks at her reflection in one of the weird vein like things surrounding the room.

"But… She's not a monster anymore!" Steven tries to reason but its not that easy for the seasoned veterans.

"Here." Garnet grabs him and pulls his face against her body. "You don't have to watch."

"No, please!" He doesn't give up that easily and pushes himself off of her before running in front of Centipeetle. I hold my gun close just in case. "She can walk, and talk! Just like you guys!" He shouts at them and referring to the corrupted gem.

"Caaah?" She squawks again. I don't think she realizes exactly how much danger she's in of almost getting poofed.

"See? I helped her this much; maybe I can help her more. I have to try. I made a promise!" Steven almost begs at this point to everyone to not knock her out. I shrug, not really caring whether she stays or not as things could either go good or bad. "Pleeeeeeease?" And just like that he pulls out the big guns and gives them the wide innocent eyes with pouting lips. Garnet did say she lost a battle of wills to him.

His actions work though as the Crystal Gems let out sighs and seem to concede to him. "What are we going to do with her? Let her move in?" Pearl asks. That is kind of something we need to establish.

"Aw yeah! Corrupted roommate!" Amethyst is a little too enthusiastic about this as I make sure to holster my pistols securely.

"Oh Amethyst, be sensitive." Pearl scolds the short purple gem.

Steven lets out gasp like he has an idea or something like that. "She can even stay in my room!" He proposes.

"Ooooh, we're… really doing this?"

"I don't see why not." I answer Pearl as I stand next to her, looking at Steven as he looks relieved to be able to do something for his friend. "Who knows? The little guy might be able to surprise us." I pause and look up towards the dozens of bubbled gems in the room. "Lord knows we need a surprise to help them." I add. Pearl and Garnet look up at the bubbled gems before letting out somber looks. Those dormant corrupted gems were once their friends and allies. We need as much progress made on the cure as we can.

"She can stay un-bubbled." Garnet begins to tell Steven before looking at him seriously. "But you have to understand Steven, please, be careful." She warns him, which he nods. Above all, his safety is most important. Luckily, he nods at the warning, giving us a bit of relief, as well as the fact Centipeetle is no longer freaking out.

* * *

A couple hours passed as we led the gem back to the beach house. While Steven and Centipeetle were to try to be reacquainted again, the others were going to keep an eye on them out of sight, just to be sure he'll be alright.

While they were doing that, I quickly introduced Ace to my home more thoroughly so he knows what to expect. More so I made sure to show him my droids so he doesn't freak out at them. He growled a little at them at first but after taking his picture and labeling him as friendly, their docile states let him be alright with their presence. That was just about it with the short time I had so now I'm heading back to the beach house to see how Steven and Centipeetle are getting along. I decide to go from the outside rather than warp so as not to freak out the corrupted gem. Don't want her freaking out when Steven's trying so hard to make things right with her.

"Steven?" I ask lightly as I walk through the front door, taking care to not barge right in or make any loud noise.

"Over here!" He calls out and waves me over where he and Centi are sitting around his little table near his couch.

"Hey." I greet him as I walk up. He nods back to me as I sit down next to him. Centi barely looks at me because she seems to be focusing entirely on drawing from what it looks like. "What's going on?"

"Since Centi can't really talk like us, I decided to try a different way to get her to communicate with us." He explains, then grabs the box of crayons. "Art." He answers with stars in his eyes and holding the box close to him.

"Mm." Centi struggles a little to reach over to the box. Steven simply moves it closer while still staring at me so she can grab a green crayon.

"Drawing pictures… alright. I can see that working." While my knowledge of gem language is… confusing to tell the truth. I can read, write and tell what language the gems write in but the whole thing still feels weird at times. Besides Steven can't read the language and pictures are more straightforward. "What's she drawing now?"

"I don't know." He shrugs as we watch her work. Not long after he finishes saying that does she let out a murmur of completion. "What are you adding?" He asks her. Centipeetle reveals the paper to us to show a crude drawing of both her and Steven holding hands. _'Awww, that's nice.'_ "You remember we were buds!" He happily shouts at the drawing.

"Yeaahh!" Amazingly she's able to give us some form of legible word to hear, and is happy with what he says. We both smile at her.

"Do you remember anything from before y- I- I mean from long ago?" Steven asks her. Now that's something that we could have some more information on. The Pearl and Garnet may be veterans of the war itself but we could really use more information as to how things went down, especially how the corruption happened in the first place.

"Ohhhh, uhh ahh." Centi begins to think for a second before letting out a squawk and goes right back to drawing some more.

"Nice. She's giving us more to see." I comment as we both watch her.

"Yeeeah." She shows us the picture.

"It's you… in some kind of spaceship? Is that how you came to Earth?" He asks her. I look at the picture too but it's a ship like nothing I've ever seen before. Not like the hand one we saw Peridot arrive in and I can't tell if its similar to the one that she also took refuge in when she was fighting my friends while I was captured by the Iron Kings. Still, Centi continues drawing. "What are you drawing now?"

"She wasn't alone." I comment.

"They look kind of like you. Was that your crew?" He asks her.

"Awhk!" She gives a small squawk in approval.

"You were a captain?!" Steven gasps at the realization that the gem in front of us wasn't a simple grunt but instead had her own command. "That's so cool! I'm sorry, that's so cool, sir!" Steven salutes the earth way to Centipeetle but realizes that's not their salute. "Oh, yeah, you guys don't salute like that. You go like…" He trails off as he tries to do the Gem salute but his stubby wrists can't bend as much. "Mm. Ow, ow! Oh, this looked so easy when Peridot did it." He grumbles at his small failure.

"This is how you do it Steven." I go ahead and do the correct diamond salute that I remember seeing it being done before. Honestly, it feels really weird to do considering who it's in reference to and I don't ever wanna do it again.

"Yeeeaah!" Centi is happy about it though as she lets out a happy shrill when she sees me do it before doing it as well.

"Yeah! Like that that's it!" Steven says before I drop the salute. Centipeetle however continues to repeatedly do the Gem salute a couple times before she squawks and then continues drawing.

"It's you… saluting… You're saluting someone…" Steven voices aloud as she continues to draw out a story. A yellow-orangish gem commands her. "Your commander? She gave you an order… You and your crew... and your ship." She draws her ship and crew again, along with almost a dozen ships as well. "Woah, lots of ships. You flew through space. Towards Earth." The ships converge on earth before they land on the surface and start erecting large gem structures we've seen in the past. "You landed and started building stuff. But then…" It doesn't take a genius to find out what happened next. "The Gem war." Steven gets it as we see the drawings of running gems and small explosions. We see another picture of her and her crew running with the others from Homeworld. "You joined the fight…" It doesn't get better as she begins marking off groups of gems, indicating their apparent demise during the fight. "You and your crew kept going." She then rips the drawing of her away from her crew.

"She lost her crew." I mutter.

Steven nods in agreement. "You got separated, but you were still fighting. Then, new orders from your commander… to retreat." Her commander appears on a cliff and points for everyone to go. The next drawings are of her and everyone running. "Everyone's running, but from what? You don't know. Where's your crew? Where's your ship?! You stopped. You heard something. From the sky, a sound. A song? And then..." The realization is daunting as the bright light just may have been the last thing she saw… before everything went to…

She's sobbing. Tears fall from her gem eye and land on the white crayon colored paper. "Centi?" Steven asks but in her crying she accidentally breaks the crayon she's holding. I let out a sigh and run my hand through my hair. _'It sounds like she was Homeworld gem, and yet even though they're my enemies, I can't help but feel sorry for her. She lost everything.'_ "That light. Where did it come from?" My brothers question knocks me from my thoughts as this gets her to drawing some more. Image flash through my mind as the symbol she draws is all too familiar. "Damage from the Diamonds."

"So, that's what caused… it." I mutter, subtly referencing the corruption. I knew it was Homeworld that made the attack, but I wonder if it really was the Diamonds themselves that did it.

"Cah! Cah! Bleuh!"

"Whoa!" I instinctively backup while putting my arm over Steven as Centipeetle coughs and then spits out some acids onto the floor. Already, it begins burning through the wooden floor.

"Are you okay?!" Steven pushes my arm away and goes up to check on her. I'm tempted to pull my gun out but instead of looking like she wants to attack, she just looks to be in pain. I move in a little close as well. While she's writhing, Centipeetle falls onto the floor and she lets out a shriek as her left arm reverts to her corrupted form's arm.

"What the hell?"

"You're reverting." Steven makes the assumption. "Here, I'll heal you again!" He then licks his hand and touches the Centipeetle's gem. Unfortunately, this doesn't work as she still seems to stay corrupted, and it continues to progress. "Why isn't it working?!"

"Your healing can only do so much. I don't think you can overuse it on her too much." I try to explain but I'm still a little in the dark.

He looks at me in despair at how futile his efforts are now. "But then how can we help her!?" He loudly asks.

Before I can try to come up with an idea as for what to do, Centipeetle grabs the drawing of the Diamond symbol and shows it to us.

"The Diamonds? What do you mean?" I ask in confusion.

"We don't understand!" Steven is still hysterical about the slowly re-corrupting gem, hoping she can make things clearer. She then lets out another squawk in anger and runs up to the warp pad before she starts hitting it. She's trying to activate it. "It's not working 'cause your corrupted. Where do you want to go?" I look back over at the table before grabbing the drawings she made to hopefully give us an idea of what we need as I hand them to him. "The battlefield? Your ship?" He asks her as he flips through the drawings.

"Awhk!" The ship part gets a positive reaction from her.

"Is there something on the ship that can help you?" We don't really get an accurate reply as Centi screams and slams her fists on the warp pad, likely she wants to go now.

"She's not the patient type, bro. And she doesn't have much time." I comment as she still looks uneasy, more than likely more changing is going to happen.

"Just hold on. We'll get you there. C'mon Marcus!" He grabs my hand and pulls me onto the pad with Centi. I let out a breath of air at being literally pulled in, but might as well finish this and find out where we're going. Afterall, I can't let Steven go alone.

* * *

One warp trip later, we are now standing in front of a derelict Homeworld ship that is somewhat similar to the drawing she made for us. Of course, thousands of years of wear and tear with the elements changes the look of it a little. I still grab my pistols and do a quick look around to make sure theirs nothing here that's going to attack us.

As soon as she sees the ship though, Centipeetle sqwaks and starts running to it. "Hey!" I shout as she books it.

"Wait for Steven!" I follow them as Centi continues to let out shrieks and cries, almost like she's trying to call out to someone with the way how she's looking all around. Eventually, she doesn't run forever as she falls to the ground and her whole-body glows again.

"Oh man." I frown at the new body she takes.

"Oh no." He mutters as we go up to her, seeing her now almost completely corrupted form now. This form really does lend to her name as she really does look like a giant centipede, which doesn't do a whole lot to my discomfort to bugs but still. "Where are you trying to get to?!" He asks her as she lays on the ground from having just undergone the major change. She looks around a little from her mouth-eye now before she spots something on the ship. We watch as she runs forward and begins tearing off vines from the ship, soon revealing a door.

"Oh. You want in the door." He assumes and from her frantic tearing of the vines, it is what she wants. He looks at me, "Marcus?"

"On it." In one fell swoop, I pull out both my swords into my hands. With a running start, while Centi is focused on pulling the vines, I move quickly to her left before stepping on some rocks and launching myself along the ship above her.

*Shhhinnnng!*

My swords glide and cut through the vines and leave grooves in the metal where I cut. I land on the ground in a low crouch before my swords disappear. I turn back to them to see Centi looking at the cut vines, then me, before using her still human-like hand to open the door. Or she would if she didn't change one last time, fully turning her to her corrupted form and making her unable to use the palm scanner to open the door. She tries to use it repeatedly as she wails in frustration. Thankfully, Steven gets what she's doing and opens it for her easily enough.

"We're in!"

"Seriously? That easy! Wow Homeworld security measures suck."

"Not the time Marcus."

"Sorry."

"What now?" He asks her, even though I know we won't get a legible answer. We hear more scuttling and squawks but not from our corrupted friend. Looking up, we see two more corrupted gems like Centi. "Other Centipeetles?"

Our Centipeetle crawls up and towards the other Centipeetles before they all begin gladly squawking with each other. I can't help but smile at what this means. "Well, looks like we found her crew." I say as I pat my brothers shoulder. He too smiles at what this means.

"Hey now!"

"Gah!" I let out an uncharacteristically frightened yelp as Amethyst suddenly appears next to us.

"This is my style!" She ignores me and transforms into a centipeetle herself. "Cuuaaaaaghh Can I hang with you, dudes?"

"Amethyst, don't make fun!" Pearl calls out. We look to see her and Garnet walking in.

"I'm not! Ugh!" And just like that she shapeshifts back into herself.

"Its about time you three showed up." I mutter in slight irritation to them at them now showing up.

"You two looked like you were handling it." Garnet comments. Regardless, I'm still a little annoyed at their lack of help, but I shrug it off nonetheless. It is what it is and the very least Centi is back where she belongs.

"You guys were right after all. I couldn't help Centipeetle." Steven sadly tells the others. It wasn't the way how he wanted to help her, but he did help her in the end.

"You brought the Centipeetle back to her ship. You brought her back to her crew. They've been waiting here for her. They didn't want to leave her behind." Garnet tells him in a soft caring voice.

"Wait… how did you know any of that?" He asks them, since it sounds like they have a surprising amount of information on situation while not actually being there to listen to it all.

Garnet pulls out the papers Centi used back at the house. "She told us." Steven tries to grab the drawings before she hands them to him.

"Her drawings?"

"They've actually been watching us." I whisper to him, but he seems more focused on the paper.

"Her writing."

"It's actually decently legible!" Pearl comments.

"Considering she's been corrupted, I'd say that might be alright." I add. A quick look at the papers that they are indeed written in gem language. _'Huh, guess I missed these when Steven was trying to communicate with her.'_ If I had seen the writing earlier, I might have been able to translate what she was saying to make things easier to understand, but I think we managed well enough considering.

"Wow." He says in amazement. And suddenly Centi is right next to us. _'Wow she can be quiet.'_ Centi nudges Steven playfully in a loving manner, making him laugh. "You look so happy here."

She lets out a small squawk before she leans over and nudges me too, making me laugh as well as I gently rub her beak. "Haha, okay okay. Happy to help captain." I reply.

"Can we let the Centipeetles stay?" Steven asks the others. Since they are corrupted, the unofficial protocol has always been poofing the corrupted gems and bubbling them so they don't do any damage anywhere or to anyone. He pulls out the big guns and makes puppy dog eyes to get them to agree, just like he did before.

"You can put those puppy dog eyes away, Steven. This ship, it's their bubble now." Garnet tells him as we all look at the group of corrupted gems conversing with each other again, happy to be reunited.

We close the door with the group huddled together, leaving them to their own devices here and hopefully away from others. With this done, we begin to head back to home.

"Pearl! Pearl! Pearl!" Steven excitedly calls out the gems name as he runs up to her to get her attention. "Will you teach me to write in Gem?" He asks her.

"Oh, Steven, it's very complicated. And you won't have much use for it." She replies.

"Oh, c'mon. It'll be us just having a secret language to communicate with each other in. You already know it, don't you Marcus?" He suddenly asks me without us stopping.

"… Sort of. I can understand it well enough, but I wouldn't exactly rely on writing anytime soon." I say as I rub the back of my head. While new memories and powers have made themselves known to me in the past, the ability to understand gem language being one of them, I don't really have experience in writing it down so chances are my writing may look like chicken scratch, or worse than what Centi had used, provided the others critique me on the comparison.

"Oh, how about just a few things then, like, 'Hi. How are you? Where's the bathroom?'" He asks Pearl as he flips through the papers in his hand. His happy demeanor though plummets as he comes upon the last picture. A glance over his shoulder shows that he's looking at the Diamonds symbol. "And… 'I'm sorry.'" We delve into silence from then.

Before we go through the warp pad though, I stop in my tracks as I realize something. "Marcus, what's wrong?" Pearl asks as she notices me. When the others turn around to look, I am staring back at the derelict ship with the reunited crew inhabiting it.

The Homeworld crew of Gems.

"She's Homeworld." I mutter as I turn back to the others. A dark cross look is evident on my face as I tell them. "She… is a Homeworld captain during the war… and the Diamonds corrupted her. Just like with nearly every other gem on the planet." Slowly, I begin walking up to them, my gaze focused on the ground as the realization of how cold the Diamonds really are. "They didn't care… they didn't care about the possibility of friendly fire." By this point, I'm in my own world as I walk past them, muttering still. "They couldn't just leave when they failed… just… one… final attack… no matter the consequences."

* * *

The mood of the group was certainly down as we made it back home. As soon as we made it to the beach house, Ace joined me on the pad as we transported back to my house. He's going to have to get used to the travel hopefully soon. Poor boy looked out of it when we appeared back.

"C'mon boy. I got you." I say as I carry him into my house. I haven't really had time to add as much essentials for a dog living here. Still I carry him over to the couch and lay him down carefully on it. "There you go." When I lay him down, he lets out a small content whine and gets comfortable.

For some reason, I spend a little bit of time just staring at him as he lays there. My mind starts to go through different thoughts. _'So… much. So much has happened. For so long its been… a lot.'_ I let out a deep sigh and sit down on the opposite end of the couch from Ace before letting my head fall back. I close my eyes and resume my thoughts. _'The… cluster… my mom, the rubies, that… thing inside me, Homeworlds forces and their attempts and… then… humans.'_ My eyelids clench tighter and my fists tighten up. _'Humans… those assholes that came to the alley… the Iron Kings. I tried to compromise and make it so organization wouldn't go after me. I know about them, and they know about me and mine… and they still attacked! They came to a public place and they attacked my family! I swear I'm goi-!'_ Suddenly, something moves on my lap, snapping me from thoughts. Looking down, Ace has moved himself over and laid his head down on my lap.

I stare at him as he simply lays there, his gentle slow breathing showing his state of sleep. A genuine smile forms on my lips at my new companion. I gently pat and stroke his head as I start to feel tired myself. _'Tired… so tired… of everything…'_ My head lulls back against the back as I think on options on what to do.

I'm fed up and tired of fighting all the time. I just want to live with those I care about in peace.

Eventually, one idea that may, or may not work. But at this point… I don't care. I'm not angry… I'm just… done. I'll… do it. It may not work but…

"Haaaaaaa." But for now, I let out one final sigh before I drift off to sleep.

* * *

 **Alright, not much to say about this one. Marcus is starting to realize some things and he's going to need to do something that'll hopefully put an end to the fighting on the homefront he's got going on. Whether it'll actually work or not, we'll see.**

 **Things have been somewhat interesting and a little hectic these last few weeks to over a month. For one thing, I've been playing the hell out of For Honor when they released the new Wu Lin heroes so that took up my time a bit. I have to admit I was a little surprised but my mains for the new faction are the Nuxia and the Jiang Jun. A little surprised with the Heavy to be honest I don't really have any in my arsenal so its nice to finally use a heavy hero I like. His versatility and just wide angles of attacks just make playing group games a bit more interesting and fun. However something else out of my control came up and I'm not sure if many of you noticed.**

 **Apparently, an infection/hacker/virus cropped up here on for a bit that just about screwed up with a lot of peoples accounts. Apparently, using a Javascript you simply had to mouse over another persons infected bio and if your logged on, your account would be infected as well, completely changing your bio to something else before it also changed the associated backup email address you'd have and it would be a simple matter for the hacker to request a new password change and they'd know it but not you for your account. That's basically what I got from the posts on Reddit about the situation. Some updates happened a week or two back that said the situation has been resolved and we don't have to worry about it anymore. Still, the whole thing was a bit worrisome and lessened my writing a bit until the whole situation was resolved.**

 **While the situation has been resolved, I want to go ahead and remind everyone that I DO have other accounts on other fanfiction sites and in time I will upload what I have here on this site to those places. However that doesn't mean I'm going to just jump ship from just yet. I have the accounts on Quotev, FictionPad, and Ao3 (Archive Of Our Own) as precaution should things suddenly take a turn for the worst here and I'm unable to write out a warning or notice to everyone. Until a time like that hopefully never comes, lets hope for the best.**

 **Although that may not be because as I was trying to upload this chapter, Fanfiction had a connection issue or whatever that prevented me from uploading at my usual time of day. Fanfiction really starting to push these issues. Though, to be fair it only lasted a few hours of the day so it was mostly just poor timing so I'll give it that.**

 **MADMatt6:** Yeah, I'm glad to have finished it as well. Right now, Marcus assumes it's the Iron Kings again without any concrete proof, but he's had a lot to deal with that he just doesn't care. What he'll do next to them will determine whether they'll continue to be nuisance, or finally stop.

 **Grimlock987:** Probably. He's fine with most anime.

 **ChimaTigon:** Thanks.

 **NJred2000:** With the way the story is progressing, that's a high definition along with Steven. As for Marcus and Connie possibly fusing, that's up in the air, just like fusing with the others but either way, it would be awesome nonetheless.

 **Another thing that has also caught my attention was Red Dead Redemption 2. I really shouldn't be surprised that at least some of you have already played it and it is definitely a fun game for sure. Been playing the hell out of it and it is super fun. Some bugs, as usual with any massively big game, here and there but overall its pretty nice and fun to play.**

 **Anyway, while some games have diverted my attention a lot, the whole hacker virus fiasco being done with, hopefully, has been a massive relief now that I don't have to worry about simply browsing people's profiles and I get infected.**

 **Remember everyone, Quotev, Fictionpad, and Ao3 (Archive Of Our Own) I have accounts under the same name Vendicor so if something happens here to Fanfiction, you can find me there.**

 **Just so you all know, I'm still going to do some of the episodes that came before Monster Reunion, just did a little rearranging with the order of the episodes but I don't think it'll do too much harm.**

 **Another quick thing I feel I should mention everyone, I heard about this massive fire that swept through and devasted thousands of acres up in California. My heart goes out to everyone there effected by this, from those that lost their lives and those that lost their homes. Some towns I heard also got hit hard by the fire so if anyone of my followers or guests that are reading this was hit by the fire in some way, good luck everyone and hope the relief efforts ease up on the pain people feel.**

 **Thank you everyone for your patience and your support. I can't thank you all enough. Go ahead and fave, follow, review, whatever you want to do, but make sure most of all everyone to have fun reading, go in good health, and have a great day.**


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